L.  .  _J> 


' 


FROM  A  PAINTING  BY  THOMAS  SULLY,   1828. 


COPYRIGHT,  1876. 
BY  ANNA   TICKNOE. 


UNIVERSITY  PRESS:  WELCH,  BIGELOW,  &  Co., 
CAMBRIDGE. 


PS 


Art 

1% 
i         M«I 

PREFACE. 


E  preparation  of  this  Memoir  was  originally  under- 
JL  taken  by  me,  in  compliance  with  the  wishes  of  Mr. 
Ticknor's  family.  This  selection  was  determined  mainly  by 
my  long  intimacy  with  him.  Mr.  Ticknor  survived  most  of 
his  contemporaries,  and  at  his  death  there  was  no  one,  of 
those  who  had  known  him  in  early  youth,  who  was  both 
willing  and  able  to  write  a  biography  of  their  friend.  My 
task  was  to  be  principally  that  of  selection  from  a  very  rich 
mass  of  journals  and  correspondence.  When,  however,  the 
first  ten  chapters  only  had  been  completed,  I  was  suddenly 
seized  by  illness,  which  withdrew  me  from  all  literary  labor. 
After  an  interval  of  some  months  the  work  was  necessarily 
assumed  by  others.  Since  it  approached  its  conclusion,  my 
health  having  much  improved,  the  manuscript  has  been  sub 
mitted  to  me,  and  I  have  been  able  to  give  it  a  faithful 
perusal  and  cordial  acceptance. 

The  ten  chapters  prepared  by  me  were  stereotyped  before 
my  illness,  and  the  early  direction  thus  given  to  the  first  por 
tion  of  the  book  determined  some  points  of  its  entire  character. 
Its  form  and  appearance  were  necessarily  then  settled,  and 
the  proportions  to  be  assumed  by  the  other  parts  were  in  great 
measure  fixed.  The  next  six  or  eight  chapters  were  only  par 
tially  sketched.  The  transition  may  be  felt,  and  needs  to  be 
thus  explained. 

When  the  work  was  resumed,  it  was  undertaken  by  Mrs. 
Ticknor  and  her  eldest  daughter,  who,  thenceforward,  devoted 
themselves  conscientiously  to  the  task. 

Some  readers  may  think  that  a  memoir  largely  prepared  by 


PREFACE. 


the  immediate  relatives  of  its  subject,  though  it  has  the  ad 
vantage  of  their  complete  familiarity  with  the  mental  and 
moral  traits  of  the  person  portrayed,  is  apt  to  be  colored  by 
their  affection  and  sympathy,  even  at  the  partial  sacrifice  of 
truth.  It  is  indeed  difficult  for  those  who  saw  him  from  so 
near  a  point  to  write  with  judicial  coldness  and  fairness  of 
one  who  was  loved  and  honored  in  life.  As  in  life  we  accept 
the  fact  that  in  each  of  us  there  are  weaknesses  to  be  par 
doned,  and  not  to  be  dragged  into  light,  so  in  reading  of  one 
gifted  and  useful  to  his  generation,  we  do  not  need  to  be  told 
that  he  was  human. 

But  forewarned  is  forearmed.  The  compilers  of  this  work 
have  striven  to  make  it  a  truthful  sketch,  and  to  paint  Mr. 
Ticknor  as  he  was.  As  the  Memoir  consists  mainly  of  his 
writings,  their  responsibility  has  been  chiefly  that  of  selection. 
I  think  it  will  be  admitted  by  Mr.  Ticknor's  surviving  friends, 
that  the  picture  herein  given  of  him  is  faithful  in  outline,  and 
not  too  warmly  colored. 

Kind  friends  have  furnished  letters  and  information,  and 
thanks  are  due  to  many  for  help  of  different  kinds.  Some  of 
these  are  already  gone  beyond  the  reach  or  need  of  human 
gratitude,  and  those  who  remain  are  conscious  of  a  heavy  loss 
in  the  deprivation  of  their  sympathy,  and  of  the  interest  they 
would  have  felt  in  this  memorial  of  their  friend. 

One  controlling  purpose  prevailed  in  Mr.  Ticknor's  life,  that 
of  acquiring  knowledge  and  the  power  of  using  it  for  the  ben 
efit  of  others,  and  it  is  hoped  that  this  will  be  found  dis 
tinctly  developed  in  these  pages,  amid  all  the  varying  experi 
ences  described  in  their  contents.  At  the  University  of  Gbt- 
tingen,  in  the  brilliant  society  which  was  opened  to  him  in 
Europe,  and  in  his  library  or  his  lecture-room  at  home,  he 
was  constantly  seeking  knowledge  as  a  means  of  usefulness ; 
his  was  the  spirit  of  Chaucer's  Oxford  scholar,  — • 

"  Gladly  wolde  he  lerne,  and  gladly  teche." 

GEOKGE  S.  HILLARD. 
BOSTON,  December,  1875. 


CONTENTS  OF  VOL.   I. 

CHAPTER    I. 
Birth  and  Parentage.  —  Autobiographical  Sketch      ....        1 

v .-.      CHAPTER    II. 

Manners  and  Society  in  Boston  at  the  Time  of  Mr.  Ticknor's  Birth. 

—  His  College  Life.  —  Admitted  to  the  Bar.  —  The  Law  not  Con 
genial.  —  Determines  to  abandon  it  and  devote  himself  to  a  Life 
of  Letters.  — Decides  to  go  to  Europe  and  study  there. — Visits 
Washington  and  Virginia  in  the  Winter  of  1814-15.  — Visit  to 
Jefferson  at  Monticello.  —  Sketch  of  Jeffrey 17 

CHAPTER    III. 

Departure  for  Europe.  —  Arrival  in  England.  —  State  of  Feeling  there. 

—  Mr.  Roscoe. —  Chirk  Castle.  — Dr.  Parr.  —  Arrival  in  London. 

—  Mr.  Vaughan.  —  Mr.  Sharp.  —  Sir  Humphry  Davy.  —  Gifford. 

—  Lord  Byron. — Anecdotes  of  Bonaparte.  —  Mr.  Murray.  —  Mr. 
West.  —  Mr.    Campbell.  —  Mrs.    Siddons.  —  Leaves    London.  — 
Arrival  in  Gbttiugen    •*••  r  :»"••"''.•    ''/'"..!  •  .•  "    v  '•"     .         .       48 

CHAPTER    IV. 

Residence  in  Gbttingen  till  «the  End  of  1815.  — University  Life.  — 
His  own  Studies.  —  Benecke,  Eichhorn,  Blumenbach,  Schultze, 
Michaelis,  Kastner. -r- Wolf. —  Excursion  to  Hanover  ."  '  .  .  70 

CHAPTER    V. 

Residence  in  Gbttingen  till  the  Close  of  1816.  —  German  Literature. 

—  German  Metaphysics.  —  Anecdotes  of  Blumenbach  and  Wolf. 

—  Leipsic.  —  Dresden.  —  Berlin.  —  Weimar.  —  Visit  to  Goethe.  — 
Receives  the  Offer  of  the  Professorship  of  French  and  Spanish  Lit 
erature  at.  Harvard •  •  r  •  '  •  .       87 


vi  CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER    VI. 

Mr.  Ticknor  leaves  Gottingen.  —  Frankfort.  —  Fr.  von  Schlegel. — 
Voss.  —  Creuzer.  — Arrival  in  Paris  and  Residence  there.  — A.  W. 
von  Schlegel.  —  Duke  and  Duchess  de  Broglie. —  Humboldt. — 
Helen  Maria  Williams.  —  Madame  de  Stae'l.  —  Say.  —  Benjamin 
Constant.  —  Southey.  —  Madame  Recamier.  —  Chateaubriand.  — 
Adventure  with  the  Police.  —  Marshal  Davoust.  —  Visit  to  Draveil  121 


CHAPTEE    VII. 

Mr.  Ticknor  leaves  Paris.  —  Visit  to  La  Grange.  —  Geneva.  —  M.  de 
la  Rive.  —  Professor  Pictet.  —  Sir  Francis  d'lvernois.  —  Bonstet- 
ten.  —  Fete  by  a  Russian  Countess.  —  Madame'  Necker  de  Saus- 
sure.  —  Leaves  Geneva  for  Rome.  —  Convent  of  St.  Bernard.  — 
Milan.  —  Venice.  —  Visit  to  Lord  Byron.  —  Bologna.  —  Loretto. 
—  Arrival  in  Rome  151 


CHAPTEE   VIII. 

Residence  in  Rome.  —  Presentation  to  the  Pope.  —  Visit  to  Naples. 

—  Society  in  Naples.  —  Archbishop  of  Tarentum.  —  Sir  William 
Gell.  —  Society  in  Rome.  —  Bunsen.  —  Niebuhr.  —  French,  Rus 
sians,  and  Portuguese  in  Rome.  —  Duchess  of  Devonshire.  —  Bona 
parte  Family. —  Florence. — Countess  of  Albany  .  ....      .        .171 

CHAPTEE   IX. 

Journey  from  Barcelona  to  Madrid.  —  Madrid.  —  Conde.  —  Govern 
ment  of  Spain.  —  The  Inquisition.  —  Public  Institutions.  —  Edu 
cation.  —  School  for  Deaf-mutes.  —  Bull-fights  .  .  .  .185 

CHAPTEE   X. 

Madrid.  —  The  Prado.  —  Theatres.  —  Spanish  People.  —  The  Court. 

—  Society  in  Madrid.  —  The  Diplomatic  Corps.  —  Excursion  to  the 
Escorial.  —  St.  Ildefonso.  —  Segovia 200 

CHAPTEE   XI. 

Journey  through  Southern  Spain.  —  Aranjuez.  —  Cordova.  —Visit  to 
the  Hermits.  —Granada.  —  The  Alhambra.  —  Malaga.  —  Gibral 
tar.  —  Cadiz  .........  ,  220 


CONTENTS.  vii 


CHAPTER    XII. 

Seville.  —  Cathedral.  —  Spanish  School  of  Painting.  —  Sir  John 
Downie.  —  Journey  to  Lisbon  with  Contrabandists.  —  Cintra.  — - 
Portuguese  Society  .  «  •'••'"  ••'•,  «,'•'•  •  .  237 

CHAPTER    XIII. 

Voyage  from  Lisbon  to  Falmouth.  —  Immediate  Departure  for  Paris. 

—  Society.  —  Talleyrand.  —  Return  to  London.  —  Lord  Holland.  — 
Sir  J.  Mackintosh.  —  John  Allen.  —  Lord  Brougham.  —  Hatfield. 

—  Woburn.  —  Cambridge     .        .        v      ' V       *        .        .        .     250 


CHAPTER   XIV. 

Edinburgh.  —  News  of  his  Mother's  Death.  —  Mrs.  Grant.  —  Mrs. 
Fletcher.  —  Playfair.  —  Scott.  —  Abbotsford.  —  Southey.  —Words 
worth.  —  Dr.  Parr.  —  Sir  James  Mackintosh.  —  London.  —  Haz- 
litt.  —  Godwin. — Wilberforce. — Return  to  America  .  .  .  273 


CHAPTER    XV. 

Letters  to  Mr.  Ticknor  from  Mr.  Jefferson,  the  Duke  de  Laval,  Count 
Cesare  Balbo,  Madame  de  Broglie,  and  Baron  Auguste  de  Stael      .     300 


CHAPTER    XVI. 

Return  to  Home  Life.  —  Circle  of  Friends.  —  Inauguration  as  Profes 
sor  at  Harvard  College.  —  Entrance  on  College  Duties.  —  Literary 
Life.  —  Religious  Opinions.  —  Mr.  Webster's  Oration  at  Plymouth. 
—  Story  of  Edheljertha 315 


CHAPTER   XVII. 

Death  of  his  Father.  —  Marriage.  —  Domestic  Life.  —  Visits.  — 
Chancellor  Kent.  —  General  Lafayette.  —  Winter  in  Washington 
and  Virginia  .  .  .  .  ,-...»..  .  .  .  334 


CHAPTER   XVIII. 
Efforts  for  Reform  in  Harvard  College      .        .        .        .        .        .    353 


viii  CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER    XIX. 

Letter  to  Mr.  Webster.  —  Libraries  in  Boston.  —  Letters  from  West 
Point.  —  Colonel  Thayer.  —  Annual  Examination  of  the  Military 
Academy..  —  Death  of  N.  A.  Haven.  —  Webster's  Eulogy  on  Adams 
and  Jefferson.  —  Memoir  of  Mr.  Haven.  —  Visit  to  Washington  .  370 

CHAPTER   XX. 

Habits.  —  House  in  Park  Street.  —  Hospitality.  —  Review  of  Web 
ster's  Works.  —  Lecture  on  Teaching  the  Living  Languages.  — 
Studies  of  Milton,  Dante,  and  ^Shakespeare.  —  Public  Lectures  on 
Shakespeare.  —  Death  of  an  infant  Daughter  and  of  an  only  Son. 
—  Resignation  of  Professorship.  —  Departure  for  Europe  .  .  383 

• 
CHAPTER   XXI. 

Summer  in  England,  Wales,  and  Ireland.  —  Three  Weeks  in  Lon 
don.  —  Two  Weeks  of  Travel.  —  Meeting  of  the  British  Associa 
tion  in  Dublin  .  .  '  ' . ;  -' :- '  .'  " ";' :'  •  '. '  "•  •;"''.  .  .  402 

CHAPTER    XXII. 

Edgeworthtown.  —  English  Lakes.  —  York.  —  Doncaster.  —  Went- 
worth  House  .  »'.  i  426 


CHAPTER    XXIII. 

Brussels.  —  Bonn.  —  Weimar.  —  Winter  in  Dresden.  —  Intellectual 
and  Social  Resources.  —  Tieck.  —  Baron  Lindenau.  —  Court  and 
Royal  Family  .  .''.'.'.  .  .  ,  .  .  .  450 


CHAPTER    XXIV. 

Dresden.—  Prince  John.—  Count  Circourt.—  Von  Raumer.—  Retzsch    472 

CHAPTER    XXV. 

Berlin.  —  Neander.  —  Humboldt.  —  Ancillon.  —  Savigny.  —  Bohe 
mia.  —  Schloss  Tetschen.  —  Prague 493 


LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICOTOR. 


CHAPTER    I. 

Birth  and  Parentage.  —  Autobiographical  Sketch. 

EOEGE  TICKNOE,  son  of  Elisha  and  Elizabeth  (Billings) 
Ticknor,  was  born  in  Boston,  on  the  first  day  of  August, 
1791. 

The  circumstances  of  his  birth  were  all  favorable  for  happi 
ness,  and  for  moral  and  intellectual  growth.  His  parents  were 
of  the  true  New  England  character,  —  firm  in  principle,  amiable 
and  affectionate,  well  instructed,  and  with  a  thorough  value  for 
all  culture.  In  external  condition  they  were  neither  rich  nor 
poor,  and  his  early  life,  therefore,  was  not  pampered  by  luxury 
nor  chilled  by  poverty.  They  lived  in  a  free  and  active  commu 
nity,  surrounded  by  intelligent  friends,  whose  position  and  tastes 
were  like  their  own,  and  with  whom  social  intercourse  was  a 
benefit  as  well  as  a  pleasure. 

To  have  been  born  of  such  a  father  as  his  was  especially  a 
cause  of  daily  and  life-long  gratitude.  Elisha  Ticknor  was  a  man 
of  great  purity  of  character,  considerable  cultivation,  an  affec 
tionate  nature,  and  amiable  manners,  who  through  life  enjoyed 
in  a  high  degree  the  confidence  and  respect  of  the  community  in 
which  he  lived.  Never  were  the  duties  of  a  father  more  faith 
fully  and  tenderly  discharged  than  by  him,  and  never  was  a 
father's  memory  cherished  with  more  reverence,  affection,  and 
gratitude  than  was  his  by  his  son.  Born  at  Lebanon,  Conn., 
March  25,  1757,  he  was  educated  at  Dartmouth  College,  where 
he  took  his  degree  in  1783.  For  the  next  two  years  he  was  the 
head  of  Moore's  Charity  School,  so  called,  a  preparatory  academy 


2  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1791-1815. 

connected  with  Dartmouth  College.  He  then  taught  a  school 
for  about  a  year  in  Pittsfield,  Mass. ;  and  afterwards,  in  Boston, 
became  principal  of  the  Franklin  public  school.  But  his  health 
declining  under  his  labors,  in  1795  he  went  into  business  as  a 
grocer  in  Boston,  in  which  he  continued  till  1812,  when,  not 
liking  the  occupation,  and  having  acquired  a  property  sufficient 
for  his  moderate  wants  and  simple  tastes,  he  retired  from  busi 
ness,  and  lived  a  happy,  useful,  and  active  life,  much  occupied 
in  measures  of  public  good,  until  his  death,  which  took  place 
June  26,  1821,  at  Hanover,  K.  H.,  where  he  was  on  a  visit  to 
some  friends. 

While  he  was  master  of  the  Franklin  School,  he  made  a 
modest  contribution  to  the  literature  of  his  time  in  the  shape 
of  a  small  grammar  of  the  English  tongue,  called  "English 
Exercises,"  which  went  through  several  editions,  and  was  much 
used  in  the  schools  of  Boston  and  other  places,  till  superseded 
by  the  work  of  Lindley  Murray. 

During  his  life  of  active  business,  Mr.  Elisha  Ticknor  had 
much  to  do  with  the  establishment  of  the  Massachusetts  Mutual 
Fire  Insurance  Company.  He  was  one  of  the  originators  of  the 
excellent  system  of  primary  schools  in  Boston,  by  which  the 
blessings  of  education  were  extended  to  children  of  tender  years, 
so  that  they  could  be  prepared,  without  charge  to  their  parents, 
for  the  grammar  schools.* 

He  was,  in  conjunction  with  his  friend,  James  Savage,  a  prin 
cipal  founder  of  the  earliest  Savings-bank  in  Boston,  —  the  first 

*  By  the  city  regulations,  no  children  could  be  admitted  to  the  grammar 
schools  under  seven  years,  and  those  only  could  be  admitted  who  could  read. 
This  excluded  all  who  were  too  poor  to  pay  for  instruction,  or  whose  parents 
•were  too  ignorant  to  teach,  —  precisely  the  class  to  whom  free  schools  are  most 
important.  In  1805,  Mr.  Ticknor.  feeling  deep  interest  in  these  neglected  chil 
dren,  made  efforts  to  draw  attention  to  the  subject ;  but  it  was  not  till  1818 
that  the  selectmen  coxild  be  induced  to  appropriate  sufficient  funds  for  these 
elementary  schools.  In  that  year  four  thousand  dollars  were  voted  for  the 
experiment.  There  are  at  present  (1873)  three  hundred  and  twenty-seven  pri 
mary  schools  in  Boston. 

In  the  Connecticut  "  Common  School  Joiirnal  "  for  1841,  the  establishment 
of  these  primary  schools  in  1818  is  spoken  of  as  "the  most  important  step 
iii  the  improvement  of  the  public-school  system  hi  Boston." 


.I-  23.]  MR.   ELISHA  TICKNOR. 


in  New  England,  and  the  parent  of  numerous  similar  institu 
tions,  which  have  done  more  than  any  other  single  agency  to 
teach  habits  of  economy  and  thrift,  and  thus  lessen  the  burden 
of  poverty. 

Mr.  Elisha  Ticknor's  appearance  was  striking  and  attractive. 
Tall  and  slim,  his  movements  were  dignified  and  easy.  His  fea 
tures  were  strong  and  his  expression  grave,  but  a  gentle  blue 
eye  and  a  bright  smile  prevented  any  shade  of  sternness.  High 
principles  carried  into  every  movement  of  his  life,  thorough  cul 
tivation  within  moderate  limits,  strong  practical  sense,  with 
energy  to  apply  it  for  the  benefit  of  others,  —  these  admirable 
qualities  were  brightened  and  enriched  by  warm  affections  which 
never  failed  those  who  had  the  claims  of  kindred  or  had  earned 
his  regard  by  worth.* 

Mr.  Ticknor's  mother  was  born  in  Sharon,  Mass.,  and  belonged 
to  a  family,  composed  mostly  of  farmers,  which  was  scattered 
over  the  county  of  Norfolk,  in  considerable  numbers,  in  the 
seventeenth  century.  At  the  age  of  sixteen  she  was  employed 
as  a  teacher  in  one  of  the  town  schools  of  Sharon,  and  afterwards 
found  similar  occupation  in  the  adjoining  town  of  Wrentham. 
Being  attractive  in  person,  and  more  cultivated  than  most  of 
her  contemporaries,  she  early  won  the  heart  of  Mr.  Benjamin 
Curtis,  of  Eoxbury,  nephew  of  the  Rev.  Philip  Curtis,  long  the 
clergyman  of  Sharon,  who  died  in  1797.  Young  Curtis  was 
graduated  at  Harvard  College  in  1771,  when  he  was  nineteen 
years  old.  They  were  married,  when  quite  young,  by  the  bride- 

*  A  small  trait  illustrative  of.  his  character  is  worthy  of  being  preserved. 
When  in  failing  health,  he  was  advised  by  his  physician  to  take  brandy  once  a 
day.  He  had  never  vised  it,  and  so  strong  was  his  dread  of  its  power,  and  so 
thorough  his  resolution  to  resist  it,  that  he  every  day  walked  from  his  store 
near  the  Old  South  Church  to  his  house  in  Essex  Street  at  the  hour  prescribed, 
drank  the  stimulant  there,  and  returned  to  the  store,  fearing  that  a  dangerous 
habit  might  be  formed  if  he  permitted  himself  to  take  the  brandy  at  the  latter 
place,  where  it  was  always  at  hand. 

He  was  one  of  the  first  importers  of  Merino  sheep  into  this  country,  and  a 
large  flock  kept  near  Hanover,  N.  H.,  received  his  constant  care,  and  at  one 
time  became  valuable  and  remunerative.  His  frequent  fatiguing  journeys  to 
Hanover  were  chiefly  for  this  business.  The  flock  was  not  sold  till  several 
years  after  his  death. 


4  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1791-1815. 

groom's  uncle.  Meanwhile,  Mr.  Curtis  pursued  his  education  in 
medicine,  and  served  as  a  surgeon  in  the  Revolutionary  army.* 

At  the  end  of  the  war  he  established  himself  as  a  physician 
in  the  south  part  of  Boston,  and  with  fair  promise  of  success ; 
but  in  1784,  when  thirty-two  years  old,  he  died  of  an  acute 
fever,  leaving  his  widow  with  four  children,  the  oldest  of  whom 
was  only  six  years  old,  and  without  property,  except  a  very  good 
house  in  Essex,  then  Auchmuty,  Street. 

Mrs.  Curtis,  resuming  her  former  occupation,  opened  in  her 
own  house  a  school  for  girls,  which  she  found  no  difficulty  in 
filling.  She  went  on  with  her  work  for  several  years,  having 
among  her  pupils  the  daughters  of  some  of  the  best  families 
in  town.  She  always  said  that  she  liked  the  occupation,  and 
certainly  continued  it,  when  it  was  no  longer  necessary,  after  her 
marriage  with  Mr.  Ticknor,  which  took  place  May  1,  1790. 

The  children  by  her  first  marriage  were  Eliza,  who  married 
William  H.  Woodward,  a  respectable  lawyer  in  Hanover,  N.  H., 
and  the  defendant  in  the  memorable  case  of  Dartmouth  Col 
lege  vs.  Woodward  ;  Benjamin,  a  captain  of  a  merchant  ship 
lost  at  sea,  who  was  the  father  of  the  two  eminent  members 
of  the  bar,  Benjamin  Eobbins  Curtis  and  George  Ticknor 
Curtis;  Harriet,  who  died  at  the  age  of  twenty-two;  and  Au 
gustus,  who  was  lost  at  sea,  on  a  northern  voyage,  at  the  age  of 
eighteen. 

Mr.  Ticknor  was  the  only  child  of  the  second  marriage. 

William  Ticknor,  father  of  Elisha,  was  a  farmer,  residing  in 
Lebanon,  N.  H.  He  lived  to  a  great  age,  dying  in  1822,  the 
year  after  his  son.  . 

We  give  here  some  recollections  of  him,  and  of  his  own  early 
life,  dictated  by  Mr.  Ticknor  in  the  leisure  of  his  last  peaceful 
years. 


*  We  have  heard  Mr.  Ticknor  mention  a  somewhat  romantic  incident  con 
nected  with  the  first  marriage  of  his  mother.  The  ceremony  took  place  pri 
vately,  when  young  Curtis  was  about  to  join  the  army,  and  for  some  time, 
while  the  secret  was  kept,  his  letters  to  her  bore  the  appearance  of  a  lover's 
letters,  but  between  the  lines,  in  sympathetic  ink,  were  written  the  husband's 
words  for  her  eye  only. 


JR.  1-23.]  PRESIDENT  WHEELOCK.  5 

My  grandfather's  farm  was  at  Lebanon,  on  Connecticut  River. 
Dartmouth  College,  in  Hanover,  N.  H.,  where  my  father  was  edu 
cated,  was  only  a  few  miles  off,  and  he  liked  to  visit  both.  My 
mother  went  with  him,  and  so  did  I,  beginning  in  1802.  But  it 
was  a  very  different  thing  to  travel  then,  and  in  the  interior  of  New 
England,  from  what  it  is  now.  The  distance  was  hardly  one  hundred 
and  twenty  miles,  but  it  was  a  hard  week's  work,  with  a  carriage  and 
a  pair  of  horses,  —  the  carriage  being  what  used  to  be  called  a 
coachee.  One  day,  I  recollect,  we  made  with  difficulty  thirteen 
miles,  and  the  road  was  so  rough  and  dangerous  that  my  mother 
was  put  on  horseback,  and  two  men  were  hired  to  go  on  foot,  with 
ropes  to  steady  the  carriage  over  the  most  difficult  places.  But  we 
got  through  at  last,  and  I  enjoyed  it  very  much,  for  it  was  all  new, 
and  full  of  strange  adventure.  I  was  eleven  when  I  took  this,  my 
first  journey. 

At  Dartmouth  College  (or  rather  Hanover),  we  stayed  at  President 
Wheelock's.  His  wife  was  a  daughter  of  a  Dutch  gentleman,  gov 
ernor  of  the  island  of  St.  Thomas,  and  connected  with  the  Boudinot 
family,  of  New  Jersey.  Some  of  the  furniture  of  her  house,  which 
I  suppose  she  brought  with  her,  made  a  curious  contrast  with  the  life 
about  her.  I  remember  that  the  sheets  on  my  bed  were  of  delicate 
linen,  and  that  the  pillow-cases  were  trimmed  with  lace.  There 
were  no  carpets  on  the  floors,  and  the  cookery  was  detestable.  I 
remember  how  I  hated  to  sit  down  to  dinner. 

Dr.  Wheelock  was  stiff  and  stately.  He  read  constantly,  sat  up 
late,  and  got  up  early.  He  talked  very  gravely  and  slow,  with  a 
falsetto  voice.  Mr.  Webster  could  imitate  him  perfectly.  He  had 
been  in  England,  he  had  had  a  finger  in  politics,  and  had  been  a 
lieutenant-colonel  in  the  army  of  the  Revolution  ;  but  there  was  not 
the  least  trace  of  either  of  these  portions  of  his  life,  in  his  manners  or 
conversation,  at  this  time.  He  was  one  of  the  most  formal  men  I 
ever  knew.  I  saw  a  great  deal  of  him,  from  1802  to  1816,  in  his  own 
house  and  my  father's,  but  never  felt  the  smallest  degree  of  familiarity 
with  him,  nor  do  I  believe  that  any  of  the  students  or  young  men 
did.  They  were  generally  very  awkward,  unused  to  the  ways  of  the 
world.  Many  of  them,  when  they  went  to  the  President  on  their  lit 
tle  affairs,  did  not  know  when  the  time  had  come  for  them  to  get  up 
and  leave  him  :  he,  on  the  other  hand,  was  very  covetous  of  his 
time,  and  when  the  business  was  settled,  and  he  had  waited  a  little 
while,  he  would  say,  "  Will  you  sit  longer,  sir,  or  will  you  go  now  ? " 
It  was  a  recognized  formula,  and  no  young  man  —  that  I  ever  heard 
of —  ever  sat  longer  after  hearing  it.  • 


6  '    LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1791-1815. 

There  was  a  political  quarrel  about  the  affairs  of  the  college  which 
changed  its  constitution  in  1819.  President  Wheelock  died  in  1817. 

My  father  took  little  interest  in  the  college  after  this.  He  still, 
however,  continued  to  go  every  summer  to  see  his  father  at  Lebanon. 

It  was  at  Hanover,  at  the  house  of  an  old  and  valued  friend,  that 
he  died  of  sudden  paralysis,  in  the  summer  of  1821.  My  grandfather 
died  the  next  year,  very  soon  after  I  had  visited  him.  The  old  gen 
tleman  was  a  good  farmer,  gentle  and  winning  in  his  ways,  and  much 
liked  by  his  neighbors.  He  had  enough  to  live  upon,  but  nothing 
more.  In  my  boyhood,  I  took  great  delight  in  all  the  farming  opera 
tions,  in  which  I  was  allowed  to  take  such  share  as  was  suited  to  my 
age  and  strength.  I  remember  I  was  very  fond  of  a  frock  of  checked 
stuff  my  mother  made  for  me  to  work  in,  which  I  very  soon  spoiled. 
But  1  never  knew  anything  of  farming.  There  was  one  farm  of  a 
hundred  acres,  and  another  of  forty.  The  house  was  of  moderate 
size,  with  two  large  barns  ;  but  there  was  nothing  pretty  or  attractive, 
in  the  appearance  of  the  place.  We  often  stayed  there  a  month, 
sometimes  longer. 

One  summer,  when  I  was  about  thirteen,  before  I  went  to  college, 
my  grandfather,  my  father,  and  I  went  to  Bath  and  Littleton,  to  see 
some  relatives,  —  my  father  and  I  in  a  chaise,  niy  grandfather  on  a 
famous  mare  that  he  was  very  proud  of.  Sometimes  he  exchanged 
with  my  father.  I  went  to  my  grandfather's  occasionally  while  I  was 
in  college,  but  not  to  stay.  He  came  to  the  Commencement,  when  I 
took  my  degree,  in  1807,  and  was  then  quite  an  old  man. 

My  father,  who  was  a  good  scholar  for  his  time,  fitted  me  for  col 
lege.  I  never  went  to  a  regular  school.  He  was  much  connected 
with  Dartmouth  College,  where  he  was  educated,  and  where,  after  he 
was  graduated,  he  was  the  head  of  Moore's  Charity  School,  then,  and 
still,  connected  with  that  institution.  In  consequence  of  this  circum 
stance,  President  Wheelock,  Professor  Woodward,  and  other  persons 
connected  with  it,  in  later  years,  made  my  father's  house  their  home 
when  they  came  to  Boston,  in  the  long  winter  vacations.  They  took 
much  notice  of  me,  and,  at  the  suggestion  of  President  Wheelock, 
he  examined  me  for  college,  and  gave  me  a  certificate  of  admission, 
before  I  was  ten  years  old.  I  only  remember  that  he  examined  me 
in  Cicero's  Orations  and  the  Greek  Testament. 

Of  course,  I  knew  very  little,  and  the  whole  thing  was  a  form,  per 
haps  a  farce.  There  was  no  thought  of  my  going  to  college  then, 
and  I  did  not  go  till  I  was  fourteen  ;  but  I  was  twice  examined  at 
the  college  (where  I  went  with  my  father  and  mother  every  summer) 


J&.  1-23.]  DARTMOUTH  COLLEGE.  7 

for  advanced  standing,  and  was  finally  admitted  as  a  Junior,  and  went 
to  reside  there  from  Commencement,  August,  1805.  Meantime,  I 
continued  to  study  with  my  father  at  home.  In  1803  I  was  put  to 
learn  French  with  Mr.  Francis  Sales,  with  whom  I  made  very  good 
progress,  though  his  pronunciation  was  bad,  as  he  came  from  the 
South  of  France,  and  both  he  and  I  had  to  correct  it  later.  I  also 
learnt  a  little  Spanish  with  him,  —  but  very  little  ;  though  he  knew 
it  tolerably  well,  having  lived  some  time  in  Spain  with  an  uncle, 
who,  like  himself,  was  a  refugee  in  the  time  of  the  Revolution. 

About  the  same  time,  Mr.  Ezekiel  Webster,  an  elder  brother  of 
Daniel,  a  graduate  of  Dartmouth  College,  kept  a  school  in  Short 
Street,  near  my  father's  house,  which,  was  in  Essex  Street ;  and  my 
father,  thinking  Mr.  Webster  might  know  more  Greek  than  he  did, 
sent  me  to  him  at  private  hours,  to  read  Homer's  Iliad.  It  was  a 
mistake.  I  very  soon  found  out  that  Mr.  Webster  knew  less  Greek 
than  my  father,  and  could  teach  me  nothing.  But  I  did  not  tell  of 
this.  I  read  about  half  the  Iliad  with  him,  much  amused  by  the 
original,  and  more  with  Pope,  of  which  I  read  the  whole. 

At  Hanover,  from  1805  to  1807, 1  was  in  Dartmouth  College.  One 
main  reason  for  my  going  there  was  that  my  half-sister,  Miss  Curtis, 
was  married  to  an  extremely  respectable  lawyer  of  that  place,  Mr. 
William  Woodward,  and  I  lived  in  her  family.  I  had  a  good  room, 
and  led  a  very  pleasant  life,  with  good  and  respectable  people,  all 
more  or  less  connected  with  the  college  ;  but  I  learnt  very  little. 
The  instructors  generally  were  not  as  good  teachers  as  my  father  had 
been,  and  I  knew  it ;  so  I  took  no  great  interest  in  study,  I  remem 
ber  liking  to  read  Horace,  and  I  enjoyed  calculating  the  great  eclipse 
of  1806,  and  making  a  projection  of  it,  which  turned  out  nearly  right. 
This,  however,  with  a  tolerably  good  knowledge  of  the  higher  algebra, 
was  all  I  ever  acquired  in  mathematics,  and  it  was  soon  forgotten. 

I  was  idle  in  college,  and  learnt  little  ;  but  I  led  a  happy  life,  and 
ran  into  no  wildness  or  excesses.  Indeed,  in  that  village  life,  there 
was  small  opportunity  for  such  things,  and  those  with  whom  I  lived 
and  associated,  both  in  college  and  in  the  society  of  the  place,  were 
excellent  people. 

Of  my  classmates,  Joseph  Bell  afterwards  became  an  eminent  law 
yer  ;  Hunt,  the  father  of  the  artist  and  the  architect,  was  a  member 
of  Congress  ;  Newcombe  distinguished  himself  in  the  navy.  But  the 
two  whom  I  knew  the  most  were  Holbrook  —  a  gentle,  careful,  but 
not  very  successful  scholar,  who  died  at  the  South,  where  he  was  a 
schoolmaster  —  and  Thayer,  Sylvanus  Thayer,  who  was  the  first 


8  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1791-1815. 

scholar  in  the  class,  and  with  whom  my  intimacy,  for  sixty  years,  has 
never  been  at  any  time  impaired.  He  made  West  Point  what  it  has 
been  to  the  military  character  of  the  country,  and  is  still  alive  (1869) 
at.  a  great  age,  —  a  man  of  very  great  ability,  of  the  highest  distinc 
tion  in  his  profession,  and  of  the  purest  and  truest  honor  and  virtue.  * 

Soon  after  I  left  college,  —  in  1807,  —  my  father,  who  had  a  great 
regard  for  classical  learning,  and  knew  that  I  had  acquired  very 
little  of  it,  proposed  to  me  to  study  with  the  Rev.  John  Sylvester 
John  Gardiner,  Rector  of  Trinity  Church,  who  was  in  the  habit  of 
preparing  a  few  pupils  for  Harvard  College,  and  instructing  others 
who  had  left  college.  Dr.  Gardiner  was  a  very  good  scholar,  bred  in 
England  under  Dr.  Parr,  and  his  teaching  was  undoubtedly  better 
of  the  sort  than  any  to  be  had  elsewhere  in  New  England.  He 
received  his  pupils  in  his  library,  in  his  slippers  and  dressing-gown. 
I  went  to  him  after  the  other  scholars  had  left  him,  from  twelve  to 
one  o'clock,  but  sometimes  a  little  "earlier,  in  order  to  hear  some  of 
the  recitations.  He  was  a  strict  and  accurate  teacher,  stern  and 
severe  to  the  inattentive  and  stiipid,  but  kindly  and  helpful  to  will 
ing  workers. 

I  prepared  at  home  what  he  prescribed,  and  the  rest  of  the  time 
occupied  myself  according  to  my  tastes.  I  read  with  him  parts  of 
Livy,  the  Annals  of  Tacitus,  the  whole  of  Juvenal  and  Persius,  the 
Satires  of  Horace,  and  portions  of  other  Latin  Classics  which  I  do  not 
remember.  I  wrote  Latin  prose  and  verse.  In  Greek,  I  read  some 
books  of  the  Odyssey,  I  don't  remember  how  many  ;  the  Alcestis, 
and  two  or  three  other  plays  of  Euripides  ;  the  Prometheus  Vinctus 
of  ^Eschylus  ;  portions  of  Herodotus,  and  parts  of  Thucydides,  —  of 
which  last  I  only  remember  how  I  was  tormented  by  the  account  of 
the  Plague  at  Athens.  This  was  the  work  of  between  two  and  three 
years. 

Dr.  Gardiner's  manners  were  kind  and  conciliating  to  me,  and  he 
always  received  me  good-naturedly.  He  was  fond  of  having  a  small 
circle  at  supper,  and  often  invited  me,  —  an  attention  which  he  showed 
to  no  other  of  his  pupils,  most  of  them  being  too  young.  I  was 
then  seventeen.  I  met,  at  these  pleasant  suppers,  Mr.  William  S. 
Shaw,  the  founder  of  the  Athenaeum  ;  Mr.  William  Wells,  a  pretty 
good  classical  scholar,  bred  in  England,  from  1798  to  1800  a  tutor 
in  Harvard  College  ;  the  Rev.  Joseph  Buckminster,  the  most  brilliant 
and  cultivated  preacher  of  the  time  ;  James  Ogilvie,  a  Scotchman, 
who  gave  very  striking  lectures  in  Boston,  on  various  subjects,  and 

*  General  Thayer  died  September  7,  1872. 


JE.  1-23.]  MR.   BUCKMINSTER. 


made  very  effective  recitations  from  Scott,  Campbell,  and  Moore, 
some  of  which  he  sometimes  repeated  to  us  after  supper  ;  and  Mr. 
James  Savage,  already  one  of  my  friends,  and  my  father's. 

Other  persons  were  there,  and  sometimes  ladies,  amongst  whom 
was  Miss  Lucy  Buckminster,  sister  of  the  clergyman,  one  of  the  most 
charming  persons  in  society. 

These  little  symposia  were  always  agreeable,  perfectly  simple  and 
easy,  full  of  fun  and  wit,  and  always  rich  in  literary  culture.  It  was 
my  first  introduction  to  such  society. 

I  attended  Dr.  Gardiner  for  nearly  three  years,  and  acquired  a  love 
for  ancient  learning  which  I  have  never  lost.  At  the  end  of  that 
time,  that  is,  in  the  autumn  of  1810,  I  entered  the  law-office  of  Wil 
liam  Sullivan,  Esq.,  son  of  Governor  James  Sullivan,  and  one  of  the 
most  popular  lawyers  in  Massachusetts.  I  read  law  with  some  dili 
gence,  but  not  with  interest  enough  to  attach  me  to  the  profession. 
I  continued  to  read  Greek  and  Latin,  and  preferred  my  old  studies 
to  any  other.  The  only  law-books  which  I  remember  reading  with 
much  interest  were  Plowden's  Reports,  Blackstone's  Commentaries, 
Saunders's  Reports,  in  Williams's  edition,  and  Coke  in  black  letter, 
which  I  think  I  never  mastered. 

In  1813  I  was  admitted  to  the  bar,  at  the  same  time  with  my 
friend,  Edward  T.  Channing;  who  knew,  I  think,  just  about  as  much 
law  as  I  did,  and  who  afterwards  deserted  it  for  letters,  arid  became  a 
professor,  as  I  did,  in  Harvard  College. 

Mr.  Buckminster,  whose  acquaintance  I  had  made  at  Dr.  Gardiner's, 
I  met  also  at  the  houses  of  other  friends.  I  often  went  to  hear  him 
preach,  and,  a  little  later  (1810),  began  to  visit  him  on  Sunday  even 
ings,  when  he  liked  to  receive  a  few  friends  in  his  library,  and  to 
continue  brilliant  conversation,  over  a  simple  supper  below  stairs,  at 
nine  o'clock,  with  his  sisters,  if  they  were  staying  with  him.*  There 
I  found,  generally,  Mr.  Samuel  Dexter,  the  eminent  lawyer,  and 
Chief  Justice  Parker,  both  of  them  Mr.  Buckminster's  parishioners. 
The  conversation  was  mostly  theological  and  political.  Mr.  Buck 
minster  was  very  brilliant  and  charming,  but  sometimes  uncertain 
and  abrupt.  He  was  very  fond  of  music,  and  played  on  a  small  organ 
which  stood  in  his  study.  I  grew  gradually  more  familiar  with  him, 
and  during  the  last  year  of  his  life  was  with  him  frequently.  I  was 
then  a  member  of  the  Anthology  Club,  as  he  was  also. 

I  was  at  his  church  the  last  time  he  ever  preached.  He  had  for 
many  years  been  liable  to  slight  attacks  of  epilepsy,  and  once  or  twice 

*  Their  home  was  iu  Portsmcratb,  N.  H. 
1* 


10  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1791-1815. 

they  had  occurred  in  the  pulpit,  but  never  so  seriously  as  to  disturb 
the  service  or  the  congregation.  In  the  afternoon  service  of  this  last 
Sunday  he  stopped  in  the  midst  of  his  discourse,  rolled  up  his  ser 
mon,  and  stepped  down  ;  then  instantly  came  to  the  desk  again, 
opened  his  papers,  and  went  on  as  if  nothing  had  disturbed  him. 
No  one  moved.  I  sat  with  Dr.  John  C.  Warren,  Senior,  and  he  whis 
pered  to  me,  "  I  don't  know  but  I  had  better  go  to  him  :  it  has  never 
been  so  bad  before  in  the  pulpit"  But  it  was  not  necessary.  I  did 
not  go  to  his  house  that  evening. 

The  next  day,  or  the  next  but  one,  he  was  prostrated  by  a  violent 
attack  of  epilepsy.  Some  one  —  I  forget  who  —  came  to  tell  me  of  it, 
and  I  went  immediately  to  his  home.  Dr.  Oliver  Keating,  a  connec 
tion  of  the  family,  was  there,  and  Dr.  John  Warren.  Dr.  Keating, 
after  consulting  with  Miss  Lucy  Buckminster,  asked  me  if  I  could 
stay  there,  adding  that  he  should  be  in  the  house  as  much  as  he  could. 
Though  formerly  a  physician,  he  was  then  an  active  merchant. 

I  was  much  gratified  at  being  asked,  and  gladly  consented.  I  left 
the  house  very  little  while  he  lived,  attending  to  whatever  I  could  do, 
and  occasionally  going  to  the  room  where  lay  my  unconscious  friend. 
Mrs.  Theodore  Lyman,  also  a  connection,  was  much  in  the  house,  sup 
porting  the  sorrowing  sisters  ;  and,  with  energy  and  good  judgment, 
moved  about  like  a  presiding  spirit,  with  a  perfectly  sustained  and 
quiet  manner. 

At  the  time  of  his  death  no  one  was  present  but  the  two  Dr.  War 
rens  —  father  and  son  —  and  myself.  I  had  my  arm  under  his  head 
when  he  passed  away,  without  suffering.* 

It  was  1813  when  I  was  admitted  to  the  bar,  and  I  immediately 

*  This  was  in  June,  1812,  when  Mr.  Ticknor  was  just  twenty-one  years  old. 
He  had  the  care  of  Mr.  Buckminster's  papers,  after  his  death.  Mr.  Samuel 
Dexter,  the  distinguished  lawyer,  Judge  Parker,  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Mas 
sachusetts,  —  members  of  Mr.  Buckminster's  congregation,  —  and  Mr.  Ticknor, 
met  early  every  morning,  at  Mr.  Buckminster's  house,  and  read  together,  for 
an  hour  or  more,  the  sermons,  to  make  a  selection  for  publication.  When 
they  left  the  house,  it  became  their  habit,  in  fine  weather,  to  walk  together  in 
the  Tremont-Street  Mall  (the  only  one  at  that  time),  when  the  talk  was  animated 
and  interesting.  This  was  a  period  of  excitement  about  the  war  with  England ; 
town  meetings  were  frequent,  and  feeling  ran  high.  At  one  of  these  meetings 
Mr.  Dexter  made  a  speech  of  a  very  different  character  from  his  usual  tone  and 
from  what  was  expected  from  him,  and  it  created  a  great  sensation.  The  fol 
lowing  morning  the  gentlemen  met  as  before  ;  but  the  work  was  done  more 
silently  than  usual,  no  allusion  was  made  to  public  affairs,  and,  when  they  left 
the  house,  Mr.  Dexter  and  Mr.  Parker  bowed,  and  turned  in  opposite  directions. 
Mr.  Ticknor  locked  the  door,  — and  the  pleasant  walks  were  given  up. 


<£.  1-23.]  GERMANY.  II 

opened  an  office  in  Court  Square,  near  where  Niles's  Block  stands 
now,  having  for  a  neighbor  in  the  same  building  Mr.  Alexander  H. 
Everett,  who  had  also  studied  with  me,  under  Mr.  Sullivan's  auspices. 
We  neither  of  us  were  earnest  in  the  study  of  our  profession,  but  I 
did  rather  more  law  business  than  he  did,  and,  at  the  end  of  a  year, 
paid  the  expenses  of  the  office,  such  as  rent,  boy,  etc. 

But  I  tired  of  the  life,  and  my  father  understood  it ;  for  I  was 
very  frank  with  him,  and  told  him  —  what  he  knew  very  well  —  that 
I  was  more  occupied  with  Greek  and  Latin  than  with  law-books,  of 
which  he  had  given  me  a  very  good  collection.* 

In  consultation  with  him,  it  was  settled,  that,  after  he  had  advised 
with  Dr.  Gardiner,  Chief  Justice  Parker,  and  other  friends,  I  should 
go  to  Europe,  and  study  for  two  or  three  years.  I  therefore  gave  up 
my  office,  and  turned  all  my  attention  and  effort  to  learning  what  I 
could  of  the  German  language,  and  German  universities,  to  which  my 
thoughts  and  wishes  had  been  already  turned  as  the  best  places  for 
education. 

The  first  intimation  I  ever  had  on  the  subject  was  from  Mme.  de 
Stael's  work  on  Germany,  then  just  published.  My  next  came  from 
a  pamphlet,  published  by  Villers,  —  to  defend  the  University  of  Gb't- 
tingen  from  the  ill  intentions  of  Jerome  Bonaparte,  the  King  of  West 
phalia,  —  in  which  he  gave  a  sketch  of  the  University,  and  its 
courses  of  study.  My  astonishment  at  these  revelations  was  increased 
by  an  account  of  its  library,  given,  by  an  Englishman  who  had  been 
at  Gottingen,  to  my  friend,  the  Rev.  Samuel  C.  Thacher.  I  was  sure 
that  I  should  like  to  study  at  such  a  university,  but  it  was  in  vain 
that  I  endeavored  to  get  farther  knowledge  upon  the  subject.  I 
would  gladly  have  prepared  for  it  by  learning  the  language  I  should 
have  to  use  there,  but  there  was  no  one  in  Boston  who  could  teach 
me. 

At  Jamaica  Plains  there  was  a  Dr.  Brosius,  a  native  of  Strasburg, 
who  gave  instruction  in  mathematics.  He  was  willing  to  do  what  he 
could  for  me  in  German,  but  he  warned  me  that  his  pronunciation 
was  very  bad,  as  was  that  of  all  Alsace,  which  had  become,  a  part  of 
France.  Nor  was  it  possible  to  get  books.  I  borrowed  a  Meidinger's 
Grammar,  French  and  German,  from  my  friend,  Mr.  Everett,  and 
sent  to  New  Hampshire,  where  I  knew  there  was  a  German  Diction- 

*  This  collection,  with  many  well-chosen  volumes  of  classical  and  general 
literature,  was  stored  in  a  house  in  Roxbury,  when  Boston  was  supposed  to  be 
in  danger  from  the  English  in  1812.  There  were  between  three  and  four  thou 
sand  books,  most  of  which  were  sold  when  Mr.  Ticknor  went  to  Europe. 


12  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1791-1815. 

ary,  and  procured  it.  I  also  obtained  a  copy  of  Goethe's  "  Werther  " 
in  German  (through  Mr.  William  S.  Shaw's  connivance)  from  amongst 
Mr.  J.  Q.  Adams's  books,  deposited  by  him,  on  going  to  Europe,  in 
the  Athenaeum,  under  Mr.  Shaw's  care,  but  without  giving  him  per 
mission  to  lend  them.  I  got  so  far  as  to  write  a  translation  of 
"  Werther,"  but  no  farther. 

I  was  thus  occupied  through  the  summer  and  autumn  of  1814.  It 
was  all  very  agreeable.  I  enjoyed  my  pursuits  and  mode  of  life  very 
much.  I  had  been  much  in  whatever  was  most  agreeable  and  intel 
lectual  in  the  society  of  Boston  for  four  years,  and  was  really  familiar 
with  it.  A  few  agreeable  young  men  came  every  Saturday  evening 
to  my  study  in  my  father's  house,  and  we  occupied  ourselves  entirely 
with  reading  and  writing  Latin,  and  repeating  passages  we  had  com 
mitted  to  memory,  ending  the  evening  with  a  little  supper,  which  was 
often  a  hasty-pudding  frolic.  When  I  say  that  Alexander  and 
Edward  Everett,  Edward  T.  Channing,  Nathan  Hale,  William  Powell 
Mason,  and  Jacob  Bigelow  constituted  this  symposium,  it  is  plain  that 
it  must  have  been  pleasant  and  brilliant.  The  first  nucleus  of  it,  for 
two  years,  was  Hale,  Bigelow,  Channing,  and  myself.  We  kept  our 
records  in  Latin  poetry  and  prose,  but  we  so  abused  one  another  that 
I  afterwards  destroyed  them. 

At  this  period  I  very  much  frequented  the  families  of  Mr.  Stephen 
Higginson,  Mr.  S.  G.  Perkins,  Mr.  Eichard  Sullivan,  Mr.  William 
Sullivan,  Dr.  John  C.  Warren,  Senior,  and  Mr.  William  Prescott. 

But  my  first  real  sight  and  knowledge  of  the  world  was  in  the  win 
ter  of  1814-15,  when  I  made  a  journey  to  Virginia,  —  then  a  serious 
undertaking,  —  and  for  three  months  was  thrown  much  on  my  own 
resources,  in  the  Atlantic  cities,  as  far  south  as  Richmond.  I  was  pro 
vided  with  excellent  letters  to  each  city.  Among  the  rest,  the  elder 
President  Adams  gave  me  several,  that  introduced  me  to  persons  very 
interesting  and  important  in  public  affairs. 

When  I  visited  him  in  Quincy,  to  receive  these  letters,  I  had  a 
remarkable  interview  with  him,  which  at  the  time  disturbed  me  not 
a  little.  I  was  'then  twenty-three  years  old,  and,  though  I  had  seen 
him  occasionally,  there  was  no  real  acquaintance  between  us.  It  Avas 
a  time  of  great  general  anxiety.  The  war  of  1812  was  then  going  on, 
and  New  England  was  suffering  from  it  severely.  The  Hartford  Con 
vention,  about  which  I  had  known  a  good  deal,  from  Mr.  William 
Sullivan  and  Mr.  Harrison  G.  Otis,  was  then  in  session.  Mr.  Adams 
was  bitterly  opposed  to  it.  Mr.  George  Cabot,  who  was  my  acquaint 
ance,  and  in  some  degree  my  friend,  was  its  President. 


jE.  1-23]  HARTFORD   CONVENTION.  13 

Soon  after  I  was  seated  in  Mr.  Adams's  parlor,  —  where  was  no  one 
but  himself  and  Mrs.  Adams,  who  was  knitting,  —  he  began^  to  talk 
of  the  condition  of  the  country,  with  great  earnestness.  I  said  not 
a  word ;  Mrs.  Adams  was  equally  silent ;  but  Mr.  Adams,  who  was 
a  man  of  strong  and  prompt  passions,  went  on  more  and  more  vehe 
mently.  He  was  dressed  in  a  single-breasted,  dark-green  coat,  but 
toned  tightly,  by  very  large,  white,  metal  buttons,  over  his  somewhat 
rotund  person.  As  he  grew  more  and  more  excited  in  his  discourse, 
he  impatiently  endeavored  to  thrust  his  hand  into  the  breast  of  bis 
coat.  The  buttons  did  not  yield  readily  :  at  last  he  forced  his  hand 
in,  saying,  as  he  did  so,  in  a  very  loud  voice  and  most  excited  manner, 
"  Thank  God,  thank  God  !  George  Cabot's  close-buttoned  ambition 
has  broke  out  at  last :  he  wants  to  be  President  of  New  England, 
sir  ! " 

I  felt  so  uncomfortably,  that  I  made  my  acknowledgments  for  his 
kindness  in  giving  me  the  letters,  and  escaped  as  soon  as  I  could. 

A  few  days  afterwards  (22d  Dec.,  1814)  I  set  out  on  my  journey, 
having  the  advantage  of  Mr.  Samuel  G.  Perkins's  company  as  far  as 
Washington.  He  was  one  of  the  prominent  merchants  in  Boston,  — 
a  man  of  no  small  intellectual  culture,  and  of  a  very  generous  and 
noble  nature.  He  had  been  a  great  deal  about  the  world,  and  under 
stood  its  ways.  His  manners  were  frank,  open-hearted,  and  decisive, 
and,  to  some  persons,  brusque.  All  men  respected,  many  loved  him. 

Mrs.  Perkins  was  the  daughter  of  Mr.  Stephen  Higginson,  Senior, 
—  an  important  person  at  one  time  in  the  political  affairs  of  the  town 
of  Boston,  and  the  head  of  the  commercial  house  of  which  Mr.  Per 
kins  was  a  member.  Mrs.  Perkins  was  at  one  time  very  beautiful. 
Talleyrand,  when  I  was  in  Paris  in  1818,  spoke  to  me  of  her  as  the 
most  beautiful  young  person  he  had  ever  known,  he  having  seen  her 
when  in  exile  in  this  country.  She  was  always  striking  in  her  per 
son,  and  very  brilliant  in  conversation.  Her  house  was  a  most  agree 
able  one,  and  I  had  become  intimate  and  familiar  there,  dining  with 
them  generally  every  week. 

The  journey  to  Hartford  occupied  two  days  then  ;  and  one  of  those 
days,  there  being  no  one  in  the  coach  with  us,  Mr.  Perkins  filled 
wholly  with  an  account  of  the  Revolution  in  St.  Domingo,  where  he 
then  lived,  and  from  which  he  barely  escaped  with  his  life.  I  have 
seldom  been  so  much  interested  and  entertained.  We  arrived  at 
Hartford  on  Saturday  afternoon.  The  Convention,  as  I  have  said, 
was  in  session.  The  members  from  Massachusetts  —  Mr.  George 
Cabot,  Mr.  William  Prescott,  Mr.  H.  G.  Otis,  Mr.  Timothy  Bigelow, 


14  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKXOR.  [1791-1815. 

Mr.  Stephen  Longfellow,  Mr.  Wilde,  and  Mr.  Waldo  —  had  taken  a 
house,  and  lived  by  themselves.  We  called  on  them  immediately. 
Mr.  Otis  alone  was  at  home,  detained,  by  a  committee,  from  the 
morning  session  where  the  other  gentlemen  were. 

Mr.  Otis  was  an  intimate  friend  of  Mr.  Perkins,  and  he  invited  us 
both  to  take  two  rooms  in  their  house  that  were  unoccupied,  an  offer 
that  we  accepted  at  once.  It  was  a  most  agreeable  opportunity  for 
seeing  some  of  the  most  distinguished  statesmen  of  New  England. 

The  next  day,  Sunday,  was  Christmas,  but  in  Connecticut  they 
then  paid  little  attention  to  that  day.  We  went  to  church  in  the 
morning,  but  gave  the  rest  of  the  day  and  evening  to  solid  conversa 
tion,  for  which  there  were  such  rich  materials  in  the  circle.  In  the 
evening  a  considerable  number  of  the  members  of  the  Convention 
came  to  pay  their  respects  to  Mr.  Cabot  (the  President),  and  made  a 
few  hours  very  agreeable  and  interesting.  Among  them  I  recollect 
the  modest  and  wise  Mr.  West,  of  New  Hampshire,  and  the  vigorous, 
decisive  Mr.  Hillhouse,  of  Connecticut. 

I,  of  course,  learnt  nothing  of  the  proceedings  of  the  Convention, 
which  sat  with  closed  doors  ;  but  it  was  impossible  to  pass  two  days 
with  such  men,  and  hear  their  free  conversation  on  public  affairs, 
without  feeling  an  entire  confidence  in  their  integrity  and  faithfulness 
to  duty. 

On  Monday  forenoon  we  drove  to  New  Haven,  where  I  saw  Prof. 
Kingsley  and  Prof.  Day,  but  more  of  Prof.  Silliman  than  of  any  one 
else.  Prof.  Nathan  Smith,  the  eminent  anatomist  and  surgeon,  whom 
I  had  known  at  Dartmouth  College,  Hanover,  took  Mr.  Perkins  and 
myself  to  one  of  Prof.  Silliman's  Chemical  Lectures.  He  had  a  large 
audience,  —  about  one  hundred  and  eighty ;  and  many  of  them  took 
notes  in  a  way  I  had  never  seen  done  before.  He  lectured  with  great 
spirit,  extemporaneously,  and  with  an  earnestriess  I  had  not  witnessed 
before  in  such  teaching. 

We  also  went  about  three  miles  from  the  town,  to  see  a  manufac 
tory  of  muskets,  made  by  very  ingenious  machinery,  invented  by  the 
Whitney  who  made  the  fortune  of  the  South,  if  not  his  own,  through 
the  invention  of  the  cotton-gin,  —  which,  more  than  any  other  single 
circumstance  in  the  history  of  the  South,  gave  the  Slave  States  their 
resources  for  rebellion.  I  remember  still  with  great  interest  the  con 
versation  we  had  with  Mr.  Whitney,  and  the  explanations  of  his  re 
markable  inventions,  which  he  gave  us  with  great  earnestness.  He 
was  a  man  of  clear  and  powerful  mind,  and  a  well-made,  vigorous 
frame. 


JE.1-  23.]  JOHN  RANDOLPH.  15 

We  arrived  in  New  York  the  28th.  It  was  a  larger  city  than  I  had 
ever  seen  ;  it  seemed  to  me  very  large,  though  it  then  contained  only 
a  fifth  of  its  present  population.  We  stayed  there  till  after  the  1st  of 
January,  and  witnessed  and  shared  that  high  holiday  of  Dutch  ori 
gin,  but  at  that  time  of  almost  universal  observance. 

The  house  I  most  frequented  was  that  of  Mr.  Robert  Lenox,  a  rich 
Scotch  merchant,  intelligent,  hearty,  and  hospitable,  with  a  very  agree 
able  family. 

We  went  to  Philadelphia  the  2d,  and  there  Mr.  John  Vaughan,  the 
Secretary  of  the  Philosophical  Society,  took  charge  of  me,  and  made 
me  acquainted  with  every  one  whom  I  could  desire  to  know.  I  was 
a  great  deal  at  the  house  of  Mr.  William  Meredith,  a  lawyer  held  in 
much  respect  ;  but  his  wife  (of  the  Morris  family  in  New  York)  was 
so  uncommon  for  talent,  knowledge,  and  brilliant  conversation,  that 
he  was  rather  overshadowed  at  home.  She  educated  her  large  family 
herself,  entirely  fitting  her  sons  for  college.  She  was  a  lady  of  warm 
feelings,  strong  prejudices,  and  great  energy,  and  much  attached  to 
Philadelphia.  Her  oldest  son,  Mr.  William  Meredith,  is  a  leading 
lawyer  in  Philadelphia,  and  at  one  time  was  Secretary  of  the  Treas 
ury,  under  General  Taylor. 

I  dined  with  a  large  party  at  Mr.  Daniel  Parish's,  and,  for  the 
first  time  in  my  life,  saw  a  full  service  of  silver  plate,  for  twenty  per 
sons,  with  all  the  accompaniments  of  elegance  and  luxury  to  corre 
spond,  and  a  well-trained  body  of  servants  in  full  livery. 

But  —  what  was  of  more  interest  to  me  —  John  Randolph  was  one 
of  the  guests.  The  instant  I  entered  the  room  my  eye  fell  on  his  lean 
and  sallow  physiognomy.  He  was  sitting  ;  and  his  head,  with  long 
hair,  straight  like  an  Indian's,  seemed  hardly  larger  than  that  of  a 
well-grown  boy.  When  I  was  presented  to  him,  he  rose  to  receive 
me,  and  seemed  to  tower  at  once  a  foot  and  a  half  above  my  own 
height.  This  arose  from  the  peculiar  conformation  of  his  person  : 
the  upper  part  was  small,  and,  until  one  was  near  enough  to  him  to 
see  the  wrinkles  in  his  face,  it  seemed  boyish  ;  but  his  extremities 
were  unnaturally  protracted,  and  his  hands  and  feet  long  and  large. 
He  talked  but  little  at  table. 

I  was  a  good  deal  at  Mr.  Hopkinson's,  who  was  distinguished  for 
the  union  of  wit,  sense,  culture,  and  attractive  manner.  He  was  the 
son  of  Francis  Hopkinson,  of  the  Revolution,  who  wrote  the  Battle  of 
the  Kegs,  and  whose  works  have  been  published.  Mr.  Hopkinson  was 
a  prominent  lawyer,  and,  later,  was  Judge  of  the  United  States  Dis 
trict  Court,  for  Pennsylvania.  His  house  was  one  of  the  most  agree- 


16  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1791-1815. 

able  in  Philadelphia,  for  Mrs.  Hopkinson  was  a  lady  of  much  cultiva 
tion  and  knowledge  of  the  world. 

At  their  table  I  met  one  day  a  brilliant  party  of  eleven  or  twelve 
gentlemen.  Amongst  them  were  Mr.  Randolph,  the  Abbe  Correa,  Dr. 
Chapman,  and  Mr.  Parish.  It  was  an  elegant  dinner,  and  the  con 
versation  was  no  doubt  worthy  of  such  guests  ;  but  one  incident  has 
overshadowed  the  rest  of  the  scene.  The  Abbe  Correa  —  who  was 
one  of  the  most  remarkable  men  of  the  time,  for  various  learning, 
acuteness,  and  wit,  and  for  elegant  suave  manners*  —  had  just  re 
turned  from  a  visit  to  Mr.  Jefferson,  whom  he  much  liked,  and,  in 
giving  some  account  of  his  journey,  which  on  the  whole  had  been 
agreeable,  he  mentioned  that  he  had  been  surprised  at  not  finding 
more  gentlemen  living  on  their  plantations  in  elegant  luxury,  as  he 
had  expected.  It  was  quietly  said,  but  Randolph  could  never  endure 
the  slightest  disparagement  of  Virginia,  if  ever  so  just,  and  immedi 
ately  said,  with  some  sharpness,  "  Perhaps,  Mr.  Correa,  your  acquaint 
ance  was  not  so  much  with  that  class  of  persons."  Correa,  who  was 
as  amiable  as  he  was  polite,  answered  very  quietly,  —  "  Perhaps  not ; 
the  next  time  I  will  go  down  upon  the  Roanoke,  and  I  will  visit  Mr. 
Randolph  and  his  friends."  Mr.  Randolph,  who  was  one  of  the  bit 
terest  of  men,  was  not  appeased  by  this  intended  compliment,  and 
said,  in  the  sharpest  tones  of  his  high-pitched,  disagreeable  voice,  "  In 
my  part  of  the  country,  gentlemen  commonly  wait  to  be  invited  before 
they  make  visits."  Correa's  equanimity  was  a  little  disturbed  ;  his 
face  flushed.  He  looked  slowly  round  the  table  till  every  eye  was 
upon  him,  and  then  replied,  in  a  quiet,  level  tone  of  voice,  —  "  Said  I 
not  well  of  the  gentlemen  of  Virginia  ? "  There  was  a  pause,  for  every 
one  felt  embarrassed  ;  and  then  a  new  subject  Avas  started.  Many 
years  afterwards  Mr.  Walsh  told  me  that  Randolph  never  forgot  or 
forgave  the  retort. 

Correa  and  Mr.  Walsh  were  very  intimate.  Walsh  lived  for  some 
years  in  Washington,  and  Correa.  who  was  a  single  man,  lived  with 
him.  One  day  Mr.  Randolph  called  on  Mr.  Walsh.  Mr.  Walsh  was 
not  at  home,  but  Mr.  Randolph's  penetrating  voice  was  heard  in  the 
parlor  by  Mrs.  Walsh.  "  Mind,"  said  he  to  the  servant,  "  that  card  is 
for  Mr.  JValsh,  —  I  do  not  call  on  Ministers  who  board  out."  This 
was  told  me  by  Mr.  Walsh. 

*  The  Abbe*  Correa  de  Serra,  Portuguese  Minister  to  the  United  States,  was 
member  of  three  classes  of  the  French  Institute  and  founder  of  the  Royal 
Academy  of  Lisbon. 


JE.  1-23.]  SOCIAL  HABITS   OF  BOSTON.  17 


CHAPTEE    II. 

Manners  and  Society  in  Boston  at  the  Time  of  Mr.  Ticknor's  Birth.  — 
His  College  Life.  —  Admitted  to  the  Bar.  —  The  Law  not  Congenial. 

—  Determines  to  abandon  it  and  devote  Himself  to  a  Life  of  Letters. 

—  Decides  to  go  to  Europe  and  study  there.  —  Visits  Washington  and 
Virginia  in  the  Winter  of  1814-15.  —  Visit  to  Jefferson  at  Monti- 
cello.  —  Sketch  of  Jeffrey. 

MR,  TICKNOR'S  sketch  of  his  early  life  is  so  full  and 
graphic  that  little  need  be  added  by  his  biographer.  I 
have  only  to  describe,  very  briefly,  the  state  of  society  and  man 
ners  in  Boston  during  his  childhood  and  youth,  thus  suggesting 
some  of  the  influences  which  helped  to  train  his  mind  and  char 
acter,  and  exhibit  the  poverty  and  limitations  of  that  period  in 
the  means  of  education,  compared  with  present  resources,  but 
which  yet  produced  ripe  scholars  through  individual  resolution 
and  desire  for  knowledge. 

Boston,  at  the  time  of  Mr.  Ticknor's  birth,  was  a  small  town, 
of  about  eighteen  thousand  inhabitants,  forming  a  homogeneous 
community,  nearly  all  of  whom  were  of  native  birth  and  English 
descent.  They  were  a  people  of  primitive  habits  and  a  plain 
way  of  life,  Avith  certain  peculiarities  of  character  and  manners 
which  the  great  increase  in  wealth,  population,  and  luxury  dur 
ing  succeeding  years  has  not  entirely  effaced.  Though  Dr.  Free 
man  had  been  settled  over  King's  Chapel  in  1 787,  as  a  Unitarian 
clergyman,  yet  the  stern  faith  of  the  Puritan  settlers  of  New 
England  held  very  general  sway.  Dr.  Channing,  Mr.  Norton, 
and  Mr.  Buckminster,  the  real  founders  of  liberal  Christianity  in 
New  England,  were  in  their  childhood,  — Dr.  Channing,  the  oldest 
of  them,  having  been  born  in  1780.  And  with  the  Puritan  faith 
there  lingered  something  of  the  Puritan  spirit,  which  threw  a 
shade  of  gravity  and  sternness  over  life  and  manners.  One  ex- 


18  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1791-1815. 

pression  of  this  spirit  was  the  drawing  of  the  line  of  moral  dis 
tinction  in  the  wrong  place,  and  branding  as  essentially  evil  that 
which  was  evil  only  in  excess.  Many  amusements,  now  justly 
deemed  innocent,  were  frowned  upon  as  snares  of  Satan,  spread 
for  the  capture  of  the  soul.  Indeed,  in  the  austere  Puritan  code, 
happiness  itself  was  almost  regarded  as  a  sin.  Repression  was 
the  general  rule  of  life.  The  joyous  sense  of  existence  common 
to  healthy  childhood  was  not  allowed  full  play.  The  discipline 
of  families  was  strict.  Children  were  taught,  not  merely  to  obey, 
but  to  reverence,  their  parents.  In  the  presence  of  their  elders, 
they  were  not  expected  to  speak  unless  first  spoken  to.  They 
were  rarely  caressed,  and  a  sense  of  restraint  was  always  pres 
ent,  which,  while  it  pressed  heavily  upon  the  timid  and  sensitive, 
had  the  good  effect  of  producing  a  valuable  habit  of  self- 
command. 

"While  the  narrowness  of  Puritan  Protestantism  was  thus 
slowly  yielding,  before  the  advances  of  social  civilization,  it 
was  not  yet  strenuously  attacked,  either  by  the  influx  of  a  for 
eign  population  bringing  with  it  its  own  foreign  creed,  or  by 
the  cold  scepticism  of  what  is  called  modern  thought.  For 
many  years  after  this  there  was  but  one  Roman  Catholic  church 
in  Boston.*  At  the  same  time  the  means  of  intellectual  train 
ing  were  infinitely  less  than  they  are  now.  Books  were  scarce, 
and  there  were  no  large  libraries  rich  with  the  spoils  of  learning. 

*  Mr.  Ticknor  was  present  at  the  dedication  of  the  first  Roman  Catholic 
church,  built  with  the  aid  of  Protestants.  In  1865  he  dictated  the  following 
account  of  the  scene  :  — 

"  In  1803  the  Catholic  Church  in  Franklin  Street  was  dedicated,  and  now,  at 
sixty-two  years'  distance,  I  remember  it  as  if  it  were  yesterday.  I  went  to  the 
dedication,  and  to  the  service  there  the  next  Sunday,  and  was  thoroughly 
frightened.  There  were  very  few  Catholics  here  then,  and  the  church  was 
half  filled  with  Protestants.  We  little  boys  were  put  on  a  bench  in  front  of 
the  upper  pews,  before  the  chancel.  Bishop  Cheverus,  —  who  spoke  English 
pretty  well, —before  he  began  the  mass,  addressed  the  Protestants,  and  told 
us  all  that  we  must  not  turn  our  backs  to  the  altar.  I  dare  say  we  boys  had 
turned  round  to  look  at  the  singers,  for  the  music  was  a  good  deal  more  gay 
and  various  than  we  were  used  to.  Cheverus  told  us  we  must  not  turn  round, 
for  the  Host  would  be  raised,  and  the  Holy  Ghost  would  descend  into  the 
chancel  and  fill  it.  I  did  n't  know  what  was  coming  ;  but  I  was  well  fright 
ened,  aud  did  n't  turn  round" 


M.  1-23]  SOCIAL  HABITS  OF  BOSTON.  19 

But  a  taste  for  reading  and  a  love  of  knowledge  were  generally 
diffused,  and  there  were  few  homes  of  those  in  comfortable  cir 
cumstances  where  there  was  not  at  least  a  closetful  of  good 
books.  These  were  carefully,  almost  reverently,  read ;  and  such 
reading  was  productive  of  sound  intellectual  growth.  Johnson 
was  the  favorite  author  in  prose,  and  Pope  in  verse.  Hervey's 
Meditations  and  Zimmerman  on  Solitude  were  popular  books, 
and  the  glittering  monotony  of  Darwin  found  admirers  and 
imitators. 

Few  were  rich,  and  none  were  very  poor.  The  largest  estates 
were  not  more  than  what  would  now  be  deemed  a  modest  compe 
tence.  Political  independence  and  popular  government  were 
of  too  recent  a  date  to  have  wholly  effaced  the  social  customs  of 
a  colonial  period.  A  certain  line  of  distinction  was  drawn  be 
tween  men,  according  to  their  wealth  and  station.  Magistrates, 
men  in  authority,  the  learned  professions,  were  treated  with 
peculiar  deference  and  consideration.  Clergymen,  especially, 
enjoyed  from  their  office  simply  an  influence  now  given  to  per 
sonal  superiority  alone. 

Friends  and  acquaintances  saw  much  of  each  other  in  a  simple 
and  unostentatious  way.  Those  in  easy  circumstances  exercised 
a  frequent,  cordial,  and  not  expensive  hospitality.  Time  was  not 
so  precious,  and  life  was  not  so  crowded,  then  as  now,  and  men 
and  women  could  afford  to  give  a  larger  portion  of  the  day  to 
social  pleasures.  The  traditions  of  the  fathers  did  not  forbid  a 
certain  measure  of  conviviality.  Excellent  Madeira  flowed  gen 
erously  at  rich  men's  tables,  and  punch  was  a  liquor  that  held  up 
its  head  in  good  society.  It  was  a  pleasant  life  they  led,  in 
spite  of  the  Puritan  frost  that  yet  lingered  in  the  air. 

The  resources  of  wealth  and  the  refinements  of  luxury,  how 
ever,  fail  of  their  end  if  they  do  not  awaken  the  faculty  of  dis 
course,  and  make  conversation  finer  and  brighter.  This  result  of 
society  was  secured  in  those  days  in  measure  not  less  ample  than 
in  our  own.  The  women  of  that  day  were,  in  beauty  of  person, 
in  grace  of  manner,  in  a  high  sense  of  duty,  in  the  power  of 
quiet  self-sacrifice,  and  in  clearness  of  thought,  not  inferior  to 
those  of  later  times.  The  contrasts  of  life  were  not  so  marked  : 


20  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOE.  [1791-1815. 

if  its  lights  were  not  so  bright,  its  shadows  were  less  deep.  The 
struggle  alike  for  subsistence  and  superiority  was  less  eager ; 
and  every  capacity  found  employment  in  the  rapid  growth  of  a 
young  country. 

Boston  has  been  compared  to  Athens,  sometimes  in  good  faith 
and  sometimes  as  a  sneer ;  but  there  is  and  was  at  least  one 
marked  point  of  resemblance  between  the  two.  In  both  cities 
the  people  were  accustomed  to  hear  public  measures  discussed  by 
leading  citizens,  and  were  thus  educated  to  a  knowledge  of  their 
political  duties.  Athens  and  the  Acropolis,  Rome  and  the  Capi 
tol,  are  not  more  associated  ideas  than  are  Boston  and  Faneuil 
Hall.  From  a  period  earlier  than  the  Revolutionary  War,  the 
people  of  Boston  were  accustomed  to  crowd  that  hall,  and  listen 
to  men  whom  wisdom  and  eloquence  raised  to  the  rank  of  popu 
lar  teachers  and  speakers  ;  and  at  the  time  of  Mr.  Ticknor's 
birth  there  were  two  men  in  Boston  —  Harrison  Gray  Otis  on  the 
Federal  side,  and  Charles  Jarvis  on  the  Democratic  —  who,  in 
any  age  or  country,  would  have  been  deemed  excellent  speakers. 

Mr.  Ticknor  thus  states  his  recollections  of  the  town  meetings 
of  Boston  in  his  youth  :  — 

"I  now  (1865)  feel  sure  —  though  at  the  time  I  did  not  so  look 
iipon  them  —  that  the  town  meetings  held  in  Boston  during  the  war 
of  1812  were  more  like  the  popular  meetings  in  Athens  than  any 
thing  of  the  kind  the  world  has  ever  seen.  Commerce  and  trade 
were  dead  ;  the  whole  population  was  idle,  and  all  minds  intent  on 
the  politics  of  the  day,  as  affecting  their  indi vidual  existence  and  hap 
piness.  Faneuil  Hall  could  be  filled  with  an  eager  and  intelligent 
crowd  at  any  moment  of  day  or  night.  Town  meetings  were  often 
continued  two  or  three  days,  morning  and  evening.  Caucuses  were 
constantly  held  on  Sunday  evenings,  and  often  it  was  necessary  to  ad 
journ  from  the  small  hall,  where  they  might  have  been  collected,  to 
the  Old  South  Church,  for  greater  space.  The  orators  were  eloquent, 
and  sometimes  adverse  parties  met  to  discuss  questions  together. 
Governor  Eustis,  Mr.  George  Blake,  and  others  on  one  side  ;  Mr.  H. 
G.  Otis,  Mr.  Samuel  Dexter,  Mr.  William  Sullivan,  on  the  other. 
All  the  speeches  were  extemporaneous  ;  it  would  have  lowered  a 
man's  reputation  materially  if  it  had  been  supposed  that  he  had  pre 
pared  and  committed  a  speech  to  memory.  Such  a  thing  was  never 


^E.1-23.]  POLITICS  OF  BOSTON.  21 

known  ;  and  no  one  thought  of  reporting  any  speech.  Mr.  Otis  was  a 
very  captivating  speaker  ;  handsome,  gesticulating  gracefully,  with 
a  beautiful  voice  and  fervent  manner,  he  excited  an  audience  some 
times  to  such  a  degree,  that  it  was  said,  if  it  had  pleased  him,  at 
the  end  of  one  of  his  speeches,  to  give  a  hurrah,  and  call  on  the  peo 
ple  to  follow  him  to  burn  the  town,  they  would  have  done  it.  His 
manner  was  very  natural." 

In  politics  the  town  was  strongly  Federal.  This  was  especial 
ly  true  of  the  educated  and  wealthier  classes.  The  clergymen, 
lawyers,  physicians,  and  merchants  were  nearly  all  of  that  party. 
Towards  Washington  their  feeling  was  such  as  was  due  to  his 
unequalled  virtues  and  services,  and  hardly  stopped  short  of 
idolatry.  The  opening  scenes  of  the  French  Eevolution  were 
watched  with  the  keenest  interest  by  both  parties,  soon  passing, 
with  the  Federalists,  to  aversion  deepening  into  horror. 

Mr.  Ticknor  remembered  Washington's  death,  and  says  of 
it:  — 

"  There  never  was  a  more  striking  or  spontaneous  tribute  paid  to  a 
man  than  here  in  Boston,  when  the  news  came  of  Washington's  death 
(1799).  It  was  a  little  before  noon  ;  and  I  often  heard  persons  say  at 
the  time  that  one  could  know  how  far  the  news  had  spread  by  the 
closing  of  the  shops.  Each  man,  when  he  heard  that  Washington  was 
dead,  shut  his  store  as  a  matter  of  course,  without  consultation  ;  and 
in  two  hours  all  business  was  stopped.  My  father  came  home  and 
could  not  speak,  he  was  so  overcome  ;  my  mother  was  alarmed  to  see 
him  in  such  a  state,  till  he  recovered  enough  to  tell  her  the  sad  news. 
For  some  time  every  one,  even  the  children,  wore  crape  on  the  arm  ; 
no  boy  could  go  into  the  street  without  it.  I  wore  it,  though  only 
eight  years  old." 

In  the  household  in  which  George  was  reared  there  was  noth 
ing  of  the  Puritan  austerity  which  has  been  spoken  of  as  tingeing 
the  domestic  manners  of  New  England  at  that  time.  Of  the 
peculiar  characteristics  of  the  Puritans,  his  father  had  only  their 
pure  morals  and  their  strong  religious  faith.  Being  the  only 
child  of  his  father,  and  much  younger  than  his  half  brothers  and 
sisters,  he  was  naturally  a  good  deal  petted,  but  never  unwisely 
indulged.  He  was  a  docile,  affectionate,  and  engaging  child, 


22  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1791-1815. 

easily  controlled,  taking  kindly  to  instruction,  and  early  showing 
that  love  of  knowledge  which  continued  in  him  through  life. 
He  was  very  delicate  in  his  childhood,  and  he  believed  it  was 
owing  to  his  mother's  devoted  care,  and  a  very  nourishing  diet, 
that  he  was  reared  to  man's  estate.*  Brought  up  by  parents 
whose  daily  occupation  had  been  instructing  young  persons,  it 
was  natural  that  they  should  give  him  the  elements  of  knowledge 
early.  He  showed,  especially,  skill  and  facility  in  penmanship  ; 
and  a  copy-book  is  still  preserved,  filled  by  him  very  creditably 
when  only  four  and  a  half  years  old. 

Between  him  and  his  father  there  was  the  perfect  love  that 
casteth  out  fear.  From  the  first  he  gave  to  this  wise,  good,  and 
kind  man  his  whole  heart  and  full  confidence,  and  was  repaid  by 
the  most  judicious  care,  the  most  thoughtful  affection,  the  read 
iest  and  most  comprehending  sympathy.  Mr.  Ticknor  carried 
with  him  through  life  the  sweet  remembrance  of  a  happy  child 
hood,  a  blessing  the  full  value  of  which  is  only  appreciated  by 
those  who  have  never  had  it. 

It  has  always  been  deemed  to  be  a  sort  of  moral  duty  in  New 
England  for  every  one  to  study  some  profession  or  take  up  some 
calling.  In  Mr.  Ticknor's  youth  the  church  and  the  bar  divided 
between  them  the  young  men  of  studious  habits  and  literary 
tastes.  Mr.  Ticknor's  strong  religious  faith,  pure  morals,  facility 
in  writing,  and  easy  and  graceful  elocution  well  qualified  him  for 
the  sphere  of  a  clergyman ;  but  his  thoughts  were  never  turned 
that  way  ;  and,  almost  as  a  matter  of  course,  he  chose  the  law. 

In  due  time  he  was  admitted  to  the  bar,  opened  an  office,  sur 
rounded  himself  with  a  fair  library  of  law-books,  supplied  by  the 
kindness  of  his  father,  and  stood  for  a  year  at  the  receipt  of  pro 
fessional  custom  :  nor  was  it  a  barren  year ;  for  the  young  law- 

*  When  eight  or  ten  years  old,  he  was  allowed  to  get  up  as  early  as  he 
pleased,  to  occupy  himself  quietly.  In  the  winter  he  went  to  the  kitchen, 
opened  the  fire,  which,  being  of  wood,  was  always  covered  with  ashes  the  last 
thing  at  night,  and  there  he  read,  or  otherwise  amused  himself.  He  remem 
bered  and  told  with  much  amusement,  his  mortification  when,  coming  down  one 
winter  night,  with  part  of  his  clothes  on  his  arm,  he  found  the  servants  just  pre 
paring  to  go  to  bed,  and,  amidst  many  jokes,  he  was  ignomiiiiously  dismissed  to 
his  own. 


M.  1-23.]  STUDIES  LAW.  23 

yer  who,  at  the  start,  pays  all  his  office  expenses  during  that 
period  does  well,  and  has  no  right  to  complain  of  fortune.  And 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that,  had  circumstances  made  it  his  duty 
to  apply  himself  to  the  law,  Mr.  Ticknor  would  have  been  useful 
and  eminent  at  the  bar.  He  would  have  secured  all  the  advan 
tages  that  can  be  gained  by  invincible  industry,  sound  judgment, 
and  uncommon  capacity  in  all  business  matters.  Every  lawyer 
knows  that  industry  and  judgment  form  the  chief  elements  of 
professional  success ;  and  his  habits  of  order,  method,  and 
punctuality  would  have  secured  the  full  confidence  of  his  clients. 
He  was  the  best  man  of  business  I  have  ever  known  of  men  not 
trained  to  it.  His  judgment  in  all  things  relating  to  the  invest 
ment  and  care  of  property  was  excellent. 

But  having  faithfully  prepared  himself  for  the  law,  and  for  a 
year  patiently  attended  to  its  practice,  Mr.  Ticknor  decided  that 
the  life  of  a  lawyer  would  not  satisfy  his  most  simple  ideas  of 
usefulness  or  happiness.  He  therefore  gave  up  his  office,  and 
turned  his  thoughts  to  plans  of  study  and  travel  which  should 
prepare  him  for  the  greater  advantages  of  Europe.  This  was  a 
conclusion  not  suddenly  or  unadvisedly  formed,  nor  without  the 
approval  of  his  father,  upon  due  consideration  of  the  reasons 
which  influenced  his  son  in  thus  changing  his  course  of  life. 

His  motives  for  the  step  he  took,  and  his  hopes  and  views  as 
to  the  future,  may  be  learned  from  the  following  extract  from  a 
letter  to  his  friend  Mr.  Haven,  a  young  lawyer  of  Portsmouth, 
X  H.,  written  in  July,  1814  :  — 

"  My  plan,  so  far  as  I  have  one,  is  to  employ  the  next  nine 
months  in  visiting  the  different  parts  of  this  country,  and  in  reading 
those  books  and  conversing  with  those  persons,  from  whom  I  can 
learn  in  what  particular  parts  of  the  countries  I  mean  to  visit  I  can 
most  easily  compass  my  objects.  The  whole  tour  in  Europe  I  con 
sider  a  sacrifice  of  enjoyment  to  improvement.  I  value  it  only  in 
proportion  to  the  great  means  and  inducements  it  will  afford  me  to 
study  —  not  men,  but  books.  Wherever  I  establish  myself,  it  will  be 
only  with  a  view  of  labor  ;  and  wherever  I  stay,  —  even  if  it  be  but  a 
week,  —  I  shall,  I  hope,  devote  myself  to  some  study,  many  more 
hours  in  the  day  than  I  do  at  home." 


24  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1791-1815. 

In  August  of  the  same  year  he  gave  to  Mr.  Daveis,  of  Port 
land,  Maine,  much  the  same  sketch  of  his  plans  :  — 

"  This  next  winter  I  shall  pass  at  the  South,  to  see  the  men  the 
cities  contain,  and  get  some  notion  of  the  state  of  my  own  country  ; 
and,  in  the  spring,  I  shall  go  to  the  land  of  strangers.  The  prospect 
of  the  pleasures  and  profits  of  a  voyage  to  Europe  and  of  travelling 
there,  grows  dim  and  sad  as  I  approach  it.  One  who,  like  myself,  has 
always  been  accustomed  to  live,  in  the  strictest  sense  of  the  phrase,  at 
home,  and  never  to  desire  any  pleasures  which  could  not  be  found 
there,  —  one  who  has  never  had  enough  of  curiosity  to  journey 
through  his  own  country,  —  can  hardly  feel  much  exultation  at  the 
prospect  of  being  absent  two  or  three  years  from  that  country  in 
which  all  his  wishes  and  hopes  rest,  as  in  their  natural  centre  and 
final  home. 

"  I  began,  long  ago,  a  course  of  studies  which  I  well  knew  I  could 
not  finish  on  this  side  the  Atlantic  ;  and  if  I  do  not  mean  to  relin 
quish  my  favorite  pursuits,  and  acknowledge  that  I  have  trifled  away 
some  of  the  best  years  of  my  life,  I  must  spend  some  time  in  Italy, 

France,  and  Germany,  and  in  Greece,  if  I  can The  truth  is,  dear 

Charles,  that  I  have  always  considered  this  going  to  Europe  a  mere 
means  of  preparing  myself  for  greater  usefulness  and  happiness  after 
I  return,  —  as  a  great  sacrifice  of  the  present  to  the  future ;  and  the 
nearer  I  come  to  the  time  I  am  to  make  this  sacrifice,  the  more  heavy 
and  extravagant  it  appears. 

'•  But  the  resolution  is  taken  and  the  preparation  begun." 

From  these  letters  we  learn  the  motives  which  led  Mr.  Tick- 
nor  to  give  up  the  law.  Such  a  change  is  no  very  uncommon 
experience.  Our  paths  in  life  are  usually  marked  out  by  the 
force  of  circumstances  over  which  we  can  exert  but  little  control, 
and  especially  by  that  necessity  of  earning  one's  bread  which  is 
laid  upon  nine  men  out  of  ten.  A  young  man  of  literary  tastes 
may  not  like  the  profession  to  which  he  has  been  trained ;  but 
if  he  have  good  sense  and  strength  of  purpose,  he  will  persevere 
in  it,  feeling  assured  that  in  this  way  he  is  certain  of  a  sufficient 
support ;  while  literature,  which,  as  Scott  well  said,  is  a  good 
staff  but  a  poor  crutch,  gives  no  such  pledge.  But  to  this  gen 
eral  rule  there  are  exceptions.  Some  men,  sooner  or  later,  come 
to  the  dividing  of  the  ways,  and  must  decide  for  themselves 


M.  1-23.]  GIVES  UP  THE  LAW.  25 

whether  they  will  take  the  right  hand  or  the  left.  Some  choose 
the  wrong  turn,  and  then  the  whole  life  becomes  a  failure,  embit 
tered  by  the  feeling  that  the  true  vocation  has  been  missed. 
Mr.  Ticknor  decided  rightly.  He  gave  up  the  law,  not  from  a 
fickle  temper,  not  from  a  restless  and  dissatisfied  spirit,  not  be 
cause  he  preferred  a  life  of  indolence  and  ease  to  a  life  of  toil, 
but  because,  upon  reflection  and  experiment,  he  was  satisfied 
that  he  should  be  more  useful  and  happy  as  a  man  of  letters 
than  as  a  lawyer.  He  saw  that  the  country  would  never  be 
without  good  lawyers,  because  the  bar  presented  such  powerful 
attractions  to  able  and  ambitious  young  men ;  and  that  it  was  in 
urgent  need  of  scholars,  teachers,  and  men  of  letters,  and  that 
this  want  was  much  less  likely  to  be  supplied.  Feeling  in  him 
self  a  strong  love  of  literature,  and,  from  the  circumstances  of 
his  life,  being  able  to  indulge  in  it,  he  came  to  the  conclusion 
that  he  should  be  of  more  service  to  his  generation  as  a  scholar 
than  as  a  lawyer.  A  mere  preference  of  taste  would  not  alone 
have  determined  his  choice ;  and  it  should  always  be  borne  in 
mind  that,  in  turning  from  law  to  literature,  he  was  merely 
exchanging  one  form  of  hard  work  for  another.  It  was  his 
purpose  to  labor  in  his  new  vocation  as  manfully  as  his  con 
temporaries  in  the  laborious  profession  he  had  left,  and  wo 
shall  see  how  nobly  in  the  future  he  redeemed  his  self-imposed 
pledge. 

This  change  in  the  plan  of  life  involved  a  change  in  the  course 
of  study.  If  he  were  to  be  a  scholar,  and  not  a  mere  literary 
trifler,  he  must  prepare  himself  for  his  new  calling  by  diligent 
study,  and  must  go  where  the  best  instruction  was  to  be  had,  — 
to  Europe,  and  first  of  all  to  Germany.  Even  at  this  day  the 
earnest  American  scholar  seeks  to  complete  his  education  in 
Europe,  for  there  he  finds  larger  libraries,  more  accomplished 
teachers,  and  better  appointed  universities ;  but  in  all  these 
respects  the  difference  between  the  two  countries  was  much 
greater  forty  or  fifty  years  ago  than  it  is  now.  The  literary 
poverty  of  this  country  at  that  time  cannot  be  better  illus 
trated  than  by  the  fact  which  Mr.  Ticknor  gives,  that  when 
he  wanted  to  study  German  he  was  obliged  to  seek  a  text-book 

VOL.  i.  2 


26  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1791-1815. 

in  one  place,  a  dictionary  in  a  second,  and  a  grammar  in  a 
third;  the  last  two  very  indifferent  in  their  kind.  There  are 
now,  doubtless,  more  facilities  in  New  England  for  the  study 
of  Arabic  or  Persian  than  there  were  then  for  the  study  of 
German. 

But  Mr.  Ticknor  spoke  the  simple  truth  when  he  said  that  he 
considered  a  residence  in  Europe  as  a  sacrifice  of  enjoyment  to 
improvement.  He  had  all  the  elements  of  happiness  in  his  own 
country.  Very  domestic  in  his  tastes,  he  found  under  his 
father's  roof  a  home  in  which  affection,  sympathy,  and  cultiva 
tion  gave  sweetness  to  every  moment  of  life.  The  intelligent 
and  agreeable  society  of  Boston  and  its  neighborhood,  where  he 
was  always  warmly  welcomed,  filled  up  pleasantly  his  hours  of 
leisure,  and  we  have  seen  by  what  strong  ties  of  love  and  confi 
dence  he  was  bound  to  his  friends.  His  was  not  the  vacant 
mind  which  goes  abroad  in  search  of  some  object  in  life;  nor 
did  he  sigh  for  the  more  highly  flavored  pleasures  of  a  riper  civ 
ilization  than  that  of  his  own  country. 

Mr.  Ticknor's  journey  to  Washington  and  Virginia  in  the  win 
ter  of  1814-15  was  undertaken  more  as  a  matter  of  duty  than 
of  pleasure ;  for  travelling  in  those  days,  in  our  country,  was 
attended  with  wretched  discomforts,  of  which  those  who  were 
born  in  an  age  of  railroads  can  have  no  conception.  He  felt 
that  he  ought  not  to  go  abroad  without  seeing  something  more 
of  his  own  country  than  he  had  yet  done  ;  and  he  also  hoped, 
in  the  course  of  his  journey,  to  fall  in  with  persons  who  had 
been  in  Europe  and  could  give  him  information  as  to  its  uni 
versities  and  means  of  study.*  His  letters  during  this  jour 
ney  form  a  natural  sequel  to  the  autobiography.  They  were 
all  written  to  his  parents,  except  one  to  his  friend,  Mr.  Edward 
T.  Channing. 

*  In  the  course  of  his  journey  Mr.  Ticknor  met  at  dinner,  and  I  believe  sat 
next  to,  Mr.  William  B.  Astor,  who,  having  recently  returned  home  after  a 
long  residence  in  Germany,  could  have  given  him  most  valuable  information  as 
to  its  universities  and  teachers.  But,  unluckily,  Mr.  Ticknor  was  not  aware  of 
the  fact,  and  the  conversation  did  not  take  such  a  turn  as  to  open  the  subject ; 
and  so  the  opportunity  passed  by  xmimproved,  to  his  great  regret  when  he 
learned  what  he  had  lost. 


&.  1  -  23.]  JOHN  RANDOLPH.  27 

To  MB.  E.  TICKNOR. 

NEW  YORK,  December  31,  1814. 

I  devoted  the  greater  part  of  this  morning  to  Fulton's  steam  ma 
chinery.  The  first  and  most  remarkable,  of  course,  is  the  ship  of  war, 
which,  instead  of  being  called  a  frigate,  is,  in  honor  of  its  inventor, 
called  a  "  Fulton,"  and  instead  of  an  appropriate  appellation  is  num 
bered  "  1 "  ;  so  that  the  mighty  leviathan  I  went  to  see  this  morning 
is  the  "  Fulton,  No.  1."  It  is,  in  fact,  two  frigates  joined  together  by 
the  steam-enginery,  which  is  placed  directly  in  the  centre,  and  oper 
ates  on  the  water  that  flows  between  them.  It  has  two  keels  and  two 
bows,  and  will  be  rigged  so  as  to  navigate  either  end  first.  Its  sides 
are  five  feet  thick,  and  its  bulwarks  will  be  in  proportion  ;  so  that  it 
is  claimed  that  it  will  be  impervious  to  cannon  shot.  It  will  carry 
forty  32-pounders,  and  is  intended  chiefly  for  harbor  defence.  Here 
you  have  all  I  know,  and  perhaps  all  the  inventor  yet  knows,  of  the 
prospects  of  this  strange  machine. 

PHILADELPHIA,  January  6,  1815. 

I  dined  to-day  with  Mr.  Parish,  a  banker  and  a  man  of  fortune. 
He  is  a  bachelor,  and*  lives  in  a  style  of  great  splendor.  Everything 
at  his  table  is  of  silver  ;  and  this  not  for  a  single  course,  or  for  a  few 
persons,  but  through  at  least  three  courses  for  twenty.  The  meat  and 
wines  corresponded  ;  the  servants  were  in  full  livery  with  epaulets, 
and  the  dining-room  was  sumptuously  furnished  and  hung  with  pic 
tures  of  merit. 

But  what  was  more  to  me  than  his  table  or  his  fortune,  John  Ean- 
dolph  is  his  guest  for  some  weeks.  The  instant  I  entered  the  room 
my  eyes  rested  on  his  lean  and  sallow  physiognomy.  He  was  sitting, 
and  seemed  hardly  larger  or  taller  than  a  boy  of  fifteen.  He  rose  to 
receive  me  as  I  was  presented,  and  towered  half  a  foot  above  my  own 
height.  This  disproportion  arises  from  the  singular  deformity  of  his 
person.  His  head  is  small,  and,  until  you  approach  him  near 
enough  to  observe  the  premature  and  unhealthy  wrinkles  that  have 
furrowed  his  face,  you  would  say  that  it  was  boyish.  But  as  your 
eye  turns  towards  his  extremities,  everything  seems  to  be  unnaturally 
stretched  out  and  protracted.  To  his  short  and  meagre  body  are  at 
tached  long  legs  which,  instead  of  diminishing,  grow  larger  as  they 
approach  the  floor,  until  they  end  in  a  pair  of  feet,  broad  and  large, 
giving  his  whole  person  the  appearance  of  a  sort  of  pyramid.  Hia 
arms  are  the  counterparts  of  his  legs  ;  they  rise  from  small  shoul 
ders,  which  seem  hardly  equal  to  the  burden,  are  drawn  out  to  a  dis- 


28  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1791-1815. 

proportionate  length  above  the  elbow,  and  to  a  still  greater  length 
below,  and  at  last  are  terminated  by  a  hand  heavy  enough  to  have 
given  the  supernatural  blow  to  William  of  Deloraine,  and  by  fingers 
which  might  have  served  as  models  for  those  of  the  goblin  page. 

In  his  physiognomy  there  is  little  to  please  or  satisfy,  except  an 
eye  which  glances  on  all  and  rests  on  none.  You  observe,  however,  a 
mixture  of  the  white  man  and  the  Indian,  marks  of  both  being  appar 
ent.  His  long  straight  hair  is  parted  on  the  top,  and  a  portion  hangs 
down  on  each  side,  while  the  rest  is  carelessly  tied  up  behind  and 
flows  down  his  back. 

His  voice  is  shrill  and  effeminate,  and  occasionally  broken  by  those 
tones  which  you  sometimes  hear  from  dwarfs  and  deformed  people. 
He  spoke  to  me  of  the  hospitality  he  had  found  in  Philadelphia,  and 
of  the  prospect  of  returning  to  a  comfortless  home,  with  a  feeling  that 
brought  me  nearer  to  him  for  the  moment  ;  and  of  the  illness  of  his 
nephew  Tudor,  and  the  hopes  that  it  had  blasted,  with  a  tenderness 
and  melancholy  which  made  me  think  better  of  his  heart  than  I  had 
before.  At  table  he  talked  little,  but  ate  and  smoked  a  great  deal. 

To  MR.  E.  TICKNOR. 

GEORGETOWN,  D.  C.,  January  17,  1815. 

As  we  drew  near  to  the  metropolis  I  got  out  and  rode  forward  with 
the  driver,  that  I  might  see  all  that  was  strange  and  new.  We  were 
travelling  on  the  very  road  by  which  the  British  had  approached 
before  us.  We  crossed  the  bridge  at  Bladensburg  by  which  they  had 
crossed,  and  saw  on  its  right  the  little  breastwork  by  which  it  was  so 
faintly  and  fruitlessly  defended.  The  degree  and  continuance  of  the 
resistance  were  plainly  marked  by  the  small  mounds  on  the  wayside, 
which  served  as  scanty  graves  to  the  few  British  soldiers  who  fell ; 
and  the  final  struggle,  which  took  place  about  a  mile  from  the  spot 
where  the  opposition  commenced,  was  shown  by  the  tomb  of  Barney's 
captain  and  sailors.  These  few  mounds,  which  the  winters'  frosts  and 
rains  will  quickly  obliterate,  are  all  the  monuments  that  remain  to  us 
in  proof  of  the  defence  of  the  capital  of  the  country. 

We  drove  forward  three  miles  farther,  and  in  the  midst  of  a 
desolate-looking  plain,  over  which  teams  were  passing  in  whatever 
direction  they  chose,  I  inquired  of  the  driver  where  we  were.  "  In 
the  Maryland  Avenue,  sir."  He  had  hardly  spoken  when  the  hill  of 
the  Capitol  rose  before  us.  I  had  been  told  that  it  was  an  imperfect, 
unfinished  work,  and  that  it  was  somewhat  unwieldy  in  its  best 
estate.  I  knew  that  it  was  now  a  ruin,  but  I  had  formed  no  concep- 


JE.  1-23.]  DINNER  AT  PRESIDENT   MADISON'S.  29 

tion  of  what  I  was  to  see,  —  the  desolate  and  forsaken  greatness  in 
which  it  stood,  without  a  building  near  it,  except  a  pile  of  bricks  on 
its  left  more  gloomy  than  itself,  and  the  ruins  of  the  house  from 
which  General  Ross  was  fired  at,  —  no,  not  even  a  hill  to  soften  the 
distant  horizon  behind  it,  or  a  fence  or  a  smoke  to  give  it  the  cheerful 
appearance  of  a  human  habitation. 

Mr.  Ticknor  dined  with  President  Madison  soon  after  his 
arrival  in  Washington.  In  a  letter  to  his  father  he  gives  an 
account  of  the  dinner. 

WASHINGTON,  January  21,  1815. 

About  half  the  company  was  assembled  when  I  arrived.  The 
President  himself  received  me,  as  the  Secretary  was  not  on  hand,  and 
introduced  me  to  Mrs.  Madison,  and  Mrs.  Madison  introduced  me  to 
Miss  Coles,  her  niece.  This  is  the  only  introduction,  I  am  told,  that 
is  given  on  these  occasions.  The  company  amounted  to  about  twenty. 
There  were  two  or  three  officers  of  the  army  with  double  epaulets  and 
somewhat  awkward  manners,  but  the  rest  were  members  of  Congress, 
who  seemed  little  acquainted  with  each  other. 

The  President,  too,  appeared  not  to  know  all  his  guests,  even  by 
name.  For  some  time  there  was  silence,  or  very  few  words.  The 
President  and  Mrs.  Madison  made  one  or  two  commonplace  remarks 
to  me  and  others.  After  a  few  moments  a  servant  came  in  and  whis 
pered  to  Mr.  Madison,  who  went  out,  followed  by  his  Secretary.  It 
was  mentioned  about  the  room  that  the  Southern  mail  had  arrived, 
and  a  rather  unseemly  anxiety  was  expressed  about  the  fate  of  New 
Orleans,  of  whose  imminent  danger  we  heard  last  night.  The  Presi 
dent  soon  returned,  with  added  gravity,  and  said  that  there  was  no 
news  !  Silence  ensued.  No  man  seemed  to  know  what  to  say  at 
such  a  crisis,  and,  I  suppose,  from  the  fear  of  saying  what  might  not 
be  acceptable,  said  nothing  at  all. 

Just  at  dark,  dinner  was  announced.  Mr.  Madison  took  in  Miss 
Coles,  General  Winder  followed  with  Mrs.  Madison.  The  Secretary 
invited  me  to  go  next  ;  but  I  avoided  it,  and  entered  with  him,  the 
last.  Mrs.  Madison  was  of  course  at  the  head  of  the  table  ;  but,  to 
my  surprise,  the  President  sat  at  her  right  hand,  with  a  seat  between 
them  vacant.  Secretary  Coles  was  at  the  foot.  As  I  was  about  to 
take  my  place  by  him,  the  President  desired  me  to  come  round  to 
him,  and  seeing  me  hesitate  as  to  the  place,  spoke  again,  and  fairly 
seated  me  between  himself  and  Mrs.  M.  This  was  unquestionably 


30  LIFE  OP  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1791-1815. 

the  result  of  President  Adams's  introduction.  I  looked  very  much 
like  a  fool,  I  have  no  doubt,  for  I  felt  very  awkwardly. 

As  in  the  drawing-room  before  dinner,  no  one  was  bold  enough  to 
venture  conversation.  The  President  did  not  apparently  know  the 

guest  on  his  right,  nor  the  one  opposite  to  him Mrs.  Madison 

is  a  large,  dignified  lady,  with  excellent  manners,  obviously  well  prac 
tised  in  the  ways  of  the  world.  Her  conversation  was  somewhat 
formal,  but  on  the  whole  appropriate  to  her  position,  and  now  and 
then  amusing.  I  found  the  President  more  free  and  open  than  1 
expected,  starting  subjects  of  conversation  and  making  remarks  that 
sometimes  savored  of  humor  and  levity.  He  sometimes  laughed,  and 
I  was  glad  to  hear  it ;  but  his  face  was  always  grave.  He  talked  of 
religious  sects  and  parties,  and  was  curious  to  know  how  the  cause  of 
liberal  Christianity  stood  with  us,  and  if  the  Athanasian  creed  was 
well  received  by  our  Episcopalians.  He  pretty  distinctly  intimated  to 
me  his  own  regard  for  the  Unitarian  doctrines.  The  conversation, 
however,  was  not  confined  to  religion  ;  he  talked  of  education  and  its 
prospects,  of  the  progress  of  improvement  among  us,  and  once  or  twice 
he  gave  it  a  political  aspect,  though  with  great  caution.  He  spoke  of 
Inchiquin's  letters  and  the  reply  to  them,  but  gave  no  opinion  as  to 
the  truth  or  merits  of  either  ;  and  of  Jeffrey,  the  editor  of  the  "  Edin 
burgh  Review,"  whose  name,  when  he  had  mentioned  it,  seemed  to 
strike  him  with  a  sudden  silence.  I  promise  you  I  was  careful  in  my 
replies,  and  did  not  suffer  him  to  know  that  I  had  ever  seen  Jeffrey  or 
his  journal.  He  spoke  to  me  of  my  visit  to  Monticello,  and,  when 
the  party  was  separating,  told  me  if  I  would  go  with  him  to  the 
drawing-room  and  take  coffee,  his  Secretary  would  give  me  the  direc 
tions  I  desired.  So  I  had  another  tete-a-tete  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Madi 
son,  in  the  course  of  which  Mr.  M.  gave  amusing  stories  of  early 
religious  persecutions  in  Virginia,  and  Mrs.  M.  entered  into  a  defence 
and  panegyric  of  the  Quakers,  to  whose  sect,  you  know,  she  once  be 
longed At  eight  o'clock  I  took  my  leave. 

To  EDWARD  T.  CHANNING,  BOSTON. 

GEORGETOWN,  D.  C.,  January  22,  1815. 

At  the  head-quarters  of  the  assembled  wisdom  of  the  nation,  I  sup 
pose,  dear  Edward,  you  will  expect  from  me  something  on  politics  ; 
and,  if  I  write  you  anything,  it  must  be  about  the  last  act  or  the  last 
rumor,  for  such  things  here  never  survive  the  day  or  the  hour  that 
produced  them.  The  last  remarkable  event  in  the  history  of  this 
remarkable  Congress  is  Dallas's  Report.  You  can  imagine  nothing 


M.  1-23]  TRAVELLING  DISCOMFORTS.  31 

like  the  dismay  with  which  it  has  filled  the  Democratic  party.  All 
his  former  communications  were  but  emollients  and  palliatives,  com 
pared  with  this  final  disclosure  of  the  bankruptcy  of  the  nation.  Mr. 
Eppes,  as  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  or  Chairman  of  'the  Commit 
tee  of  Ways  and  Means,  read  it  in  his  place  yesterday  ;  and  when  he 
had  finished,  threw  it  upon  the  table  with  expressive  violence,  and 
turning  round  to  Mr.  Gaston,  asked  him,  with  a  bitter  levity  between 
jest  and  earnest :  "  Well,  sir,  will  your  party  take  the  Government  if 
we  will  give  it  up  to  them?"  "No,  sir,"  said  Gaston,  in  a  tone 
which,  from  my  little  acquaintance  with  him,  I  can  easily  believe  to 
have  been  as  equivocal  as  that  in  which  the  question  was  put.  "  No, 
sir  ;  not  unless  you  will  give  it  to  us  as  we  gave  it  to  you."  The  truth 
is  that  this  report  is  considered  a  plain  acknowledgment  that  the 
administration  can  go  forward  no  longer ;  and  though  it  is  utterly 
impossible  to  foresee  what  will  be  the  next  measure,  it  is  easy  to  be 
lieve  that  it  will  be  violent  and  desperate. 

To  MR.  E.  TICKNOK. 

PORT  TOBACCO,  MARYLAND,  January  26,  1815. 

We  left  Washington  the  24th,  just  at  sunrise,  and  drove  five  miles 
to  a  ferry,  where  our  troops  in  their  infatuation  had  burnt  a  bridge. 
It  took  an  hour  to  cross  the  river  through  the  ice,  and  then  our  way 
led  through  open  fields,  where  only  one  wagon  had  preceded  us.  We 
had  hardly  driven  a  quarter  of  a  mile  when  we  broke  through  some 
ice  ;  one  horse  fell,  and  the  carriage,  as  the  phrase  is,  "mired  up  to 
the  hubs."  In  half  an  hour  we  were  extricated,  and  went  on  carefully 
by  the  track,  often  walking  to  lighten  the  carriage  ;  when  the  track 
suddenly  turned  into  the  woods,  and  left  us  without  a  guide.  The 
snow  was  ten  or  fifteen  inches  deep,  unbroken  for  a  mile  or  two,  when 
we  again  followed  a  cart  a  short  distance.  At  last  we  reached  the 
"  Half-way  House,"  a  miserable  hut  of  one  room  ;  and  as  I  went  in,  I 
saw  a  girl  sitting  by  the  fire,  pale  and  feeble  from  illness  ;  and  turn 
ing  from  her,  lest  she  should  think  me  too  curious,  saw  a  young  man 
on  a  bed  behind  the  door,  whose  countenance  showed  that  he  had  not 
long  to  suffer.  I  was  glad  to  leave  this  wretched  hut.  We  went  on 
at  a  moderate  walk,  foundered  twice  in  the  snow  and  mud,  and  at  last 
broke  the  pole,  when  two  miles  from  the  nearest  house.  So  Gray  and 
I  mounted  one  of  the  leaders  and  rode  on,  fording  three  brooks,  one 
of  them  pretty  deep.  It  was  after  three  when  we  reached  an  inn, 
and  soon  sat  down  to  our  breakfast !  I  had  not  eaten  anything  for 


32  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1791-1815. 

twenty-four  hours,  and  had  worked  hard,  besides  all  the  walking  in 
the  snow.  When  we  had  finished  our  meal  we  took  another  carriage, 
being  solemnly  warned  of  the  difficulty  of  crossing  the  Matasmin, 
which,  like  all  the  other  streams  hereabout,  has  no  bridge.  We 
reached  the  ford  just  before  sundown,  found  it  frozen,  broke  the  ice 
with  poles  ;  an  hour  and  a  half's  hard  driving  and  whipping  got  the 
horses  into  the  middle  of  the  stream,  where  they  refused  to  go  any 
farther.  We  got  out  of  the  carriage,  and  reached  the  bank  on  the  ice. 
1  left  all  my  luggage,  but  a  blanket,  with  the  carriage  in  the  middle 
of  the  stream.  Through  deep  snow  we  walked  a  mile  and  a  half  to 
the  first  house.  Though  called  a  tavern,  it  was  a  miserable  hovel ; 
and  when  I  went  in  I  found  two  slaves  stretched  by  the  fire  on  one 
side,  and  two  pigs  on  the  other.  As  soon  as  the  landlord  had  gone  to 
the  help  of  the  driver,  I  began  to  look  for  accommodations  for  six  pas 
sengers,  two  of  whom  were  women.  In  the  kitchen  I  found  plenty 
of  snow,  but  no  fire  or  cooking  utensils  or  eatables.  I  asked  the  boys 
if  they  had  any  beds.  "  Yes  ;  one."  "  No  more  1 "  '"  No."  "  Have 
you  any  hay  or  straw  ?  "  "  No."  "  Why,  what  does  your  master's 
horse  live  on  1 "  "  0,  he  lives  on  the  borry."  What  "  the  borry  " 
was,  was  not  clear  at  first,  but,  finding  it  meant  "  borrowing,"  I  told 
the  boy  to  get  in  a  good  parcel  of  "  borry."  In  an  hour  the  coach  was 
dragged  up,  and  I  began  to  talk  about  supper.  It  was  a  long  time 
before  the  woman  of  the  house  would  answer  distinctly  ;  but,  after 
much  urging  and  much  searching,  she  gave  us  each  a  small  tumbler 
of  milk,  and  a  short  allowance  of  Indian  cake.  At  ten  o'clock  the 
table  was  moved  away,  the  pigs  and  negroes  kicked  out  of  the  room, 
and  two  things  misnamed  beds  were  thrown  down  on  some  "  borry," 
and  I  went  supperless  to  bed.  The  wind  came  in  through  large 
cracks  in  four  doors  and  two  windows  ;  yet  I  slept  well,  with  three 
white  companions  and  two  negroes.  I  waked  in  the  morning  more 
hungry  than  when  I  went  to  sleep  ;  but  at  "  sun  up,"  as  they  say 
here,  set  off  without  a  mouthful  of  food.  We  went  two  miles,  half  on 
foot,  and  then  stuck  fast  in  the  mud  ;  and,  after  wasting  our  little 
strength  in  vain,  Gray  and  I  again  mounted  one  of  the  horses,  took 
a  wrong  track,  went  a  mile  before  we  discovered  our  mistake,  at 
twelve  reached  the  tavern  only  four  miles  from  where  Ave  slept,  sent 
back  a  yoke  of  oxen  to  pull  out  the  coach,  sent  a  man  forward  seven 
miles  for  horses  and  help,  and  then  ordered  breakfast.  The  people 
were  very  poor,  and  we  found  sickness  and  suffering  more  moving 
than  we  had  seen  it  yesterday. 

The  breakfast  was  so  poor  that,  hungry  and  fainting  as  we  were,  we 


,£.1-23.]  CHIEF  JUSTICE   MARSHALL.  33 

could  hardly  eat  enough  to  support  us  ;  but  we  could  not  complain, 
with  such  misery  about  us.  Two  miles  farther  we  came  to  another 
stream  ;  we  had  to  break  the  ice,  and,  after  an  hour's  delay,  make  our 
way  to  the  opposite  bank  as  we  could.  There,  from  a  hill,  we  saw 
two  saddle-horses  and  a  tandem  chaise  coming  to  our  relief ;  Gray 
and  I  took  the  horses,  thinking  a  horse  for  each  a  luxury  indeed.  We 
soon  reached  this  place,  having  in  fifty-six  hours  had  but  one  proper 
meal  !  We  are  in  very  good  lodgings,  and  are  promised  better  roads 

to  Richmond On  many  accounts  I  am  not  sorry  that  I  have 

gone  through  these  difficulties.  You,  my  dear  father,  often  talk  to  me 
of  your  sufferings  as  a  Revolutionary  soldier,  and  you,  my  dear 
mother,  look  down  a  little  011  the  pet  your  indulgence  has  made.  — 
but  now  I  can  answer  you  both. 

To  MR.  E.  TICKNOE. 

RICHMOND,  February  1,  1815. 

You  will  expect  from  me  some  account  of  Mr.  Wickham,  and  of  the 
Chief  Justice  of  the  United  States,  the  first  lawyer —  if  not,  indeed, 
the  first  man  —  in  the  country.  You  must  then  imagine  before  you  a 
man  who  is  tall  to  awkwardness,  with  a  large  head  of  hair,  which 
looked  as  if  it  had  not  been  lately  tied  or  combed,  and  with  dirty 
boots.  You  must  imagine  him,  too,  with  a  strangeness  in  his  man 
ners,  which  arises  neither  from  awkwardness  nor  from  formality,  but 
seems  to  be  a  curious  compound  of  both  ;  and  then,  perhaps,  you  will 
have  before  you  a  figure  something,  like  that  of  the  Chief  Justice. 
His  style  and  tones  in  conversation  are  uncommonly  mild,  gentle,  and 
conciliating ;  and,  before  I  had  been  with  him  half  an  hour,  I  had 
forgotten  the  carelessness  of  his  dress  and  person,  and  observed  only 
the  quick  intelligence  of  his  eye,  and  the  open  interest  he  discovered 
in  the  subjects  on  which  he  spoke,  by  the  perpetual  variations  of  his 
countenance. 

Mr.  Wickham,  who  has  long  been  at  the  head  of  the  Virginia  bar, 
was  by  far  too  well  bred  to  let  me  learn  anything  more  of  him  in  the 
course  of  a  visit  of  twenty  minutes,  than  that  he  was  an  uncommonly 
courteous^  elegant  gentleman.  Mr.  Wirt,  who  is  the  author  of  "  The 
British  Spy,"  etc.,  seems  a  little  more  reserved,  and  perhaps  affected, 
in  his  manners  and  remarks.  Indeed,  on  the  whole,  if  I  had  not 
known  better,  I  might  have  set  him  clown  for  one  of  those  who  were 
"  pretty  fellows  in  their  day,"  but  who  were  now  rather  second-hand 
in  society.  But  this  is  all  wrong.  He  is  undoubtedly  a  powerful  ad 
vocate  and  a  thorough  lawyer,  by  general  consent. 

2*  c 


34  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1791-1815. 

CHARLOTTESVILLE,  February  7,  1815. 

We  left  Charlottesville  on  Saturday  morning,  the  4th  of  February, 
for  Mr.  Jefferson's.  He  lives,  you  know,  on  a  mountain,  which  he 
has  named  Monticello,  and  which,  perhaps  you  do  not  know,  is  a  syn- 
onyme  for  Carter's  mountain.  The  ascent  of  this  steep,  savage  hill, 
was  as  pensive  and  slow  as  Satan's  ascent  to  Paradise.  We  were 
obliged  to  wind  two  thirds  round  its  sides  before  we  reached  the  arti 
ficial  lawn  on  which  the  house  stands  ;  and,  when  we  had  arrived 
there,  we  were  about  six  hundred  feet,  I  understand,  above  the  stream 
which  flows  at  its  foot.  It  is  an  abrupt  mountain.  The  fine  growth 
of  ancient  forest-trees  conceals  its  sides  and  shades  part  of  its  summit. 

The  prospect  is  admirable The  lawn  on  the  top,  as  I  hinted, 

was  artificially  formed  by  cutting  down  the  peak  of  the  height.  In 
its  centre,  and  facing  the  southeast,  Mr.  Jefferson  has  placed  his 
house,  which  is  of  brick,  two  stories  high  in  the  wings,  with  a  piazza 
in  front  of  a  receding  centre.  It  is  built,  I  suppose,  in  the  French 
style.  You  enter,  by  a  glass  folding-door,  into  a  hall  which  reminds 
you  of  Fielding's  "  Man  of  the  Mountain,"  by  the  strange  furniture  of 
its  walls.  On  one  side  hang  the  head  and  horns  of  an  elk,  a  deer, 
and  a  buffalo  ;  another  is  covered  with  curiosities  which  Lewis  and 
Clarke  found  in  their  wild  and  perilous  expedition.  On  the  third, 
among  many  other  striking  matters,  was  the  head  of  a  mammoth,  or, 
as  Cuvier  calls  it,  a  mastodon,  containing  the  only  os  frontis,  Mr.  Jef 
ferson  tells  me,  that  has  yet  been  found.  On  the  fourth  side,  in  odd 
union  with  a  fine  painting  of  the  Repentance  of  Saint  Peter,  is  an  In 
dian  map  on  leather,  of  the  southern  waters  of  the  Missouri,  and  an 
Indian  representation  of  a  bloody  battle,  handed  down  in  their 
traditions. 

Through  this  hall  —  or  rather  museum  —  we  passed  to  the  dining- 
room,  and  sent  our  letters  to  Mr.  Jefferson,  who  was  of  course  in  his 
study.  Here  again  we  found  ourselves  surrounded  with  paintings 
that  seemed  good. 

We  had  hardly  time  to  glance  at  the  pictures  before  Mr.  Jefferson 
entered  ;  and  if  I  was  astonished  to  find  Mr.  Madison  short  and  some 
what  awkward,  I  was  doubly  astonished  to  find  Mr.  Jefferson,  whom 
I  had  always  supposed  to  be  a  small  man,  more  than  six  feet  high, 
with  dignity  in  his  appearance,  and  ease  and  graciousness  in  his  man 
ners.  ....  He  rang,  and  sent  to  Charlottesville  for  our  baggage, 
and,  as  dinner  approached,  took  us  to  the  drawing-room,  —  a  large 
and  rather  elegant  room,  twenty  or  thirty  feet  high,  —  which,  with 
the  hall  I  have  described,  composed  the  whole  centre  of  the  house, 


&.1-  23.]  MR.   JEFFERSON.  35 

from  top  to  bottom.  The  floor  of  this  room  is  tessellated.  It  is 
formed  of  alternate  diamonds  of  cherry  and  beech,  and  kept  polished 
as  highly  as  if  it  were  of  fine  mahogany. 

Here  are  the  best  pictures  of  the  collection.  Over  the  fireplace  is 
the  Laughing  and  Weeping  Philosophers,  dividing  the  world  between 
them  ;  on  its  right,  the  earliest  navigators  to  America,  —  Columbus, 
Americus  Vespuccius,  Magellan,  etc.,  —  copied,  Mr.  Jefferson  said, 
from  originals  in  the  Florence  Gallery.  Farther  round,  Mr.  Madison 
in  the  plain,  Quaker-like  dress  of  his  youth,  Lafayette  in  his  Revo 
lutionary  uniform,  and  Franklin  in  the  dress  in  which  we  always  see 
him.  There  were  other  pictures,  and  a  copy  of  Raphael's  Transfigu 
ration. 

We  conversed  on  various  subjects  until  dinner-time,  and  at  dinner 
were  introduced  to  the  grown  members  of  his  family.  These  are  his 
only  remaining  child,  Mrs.  Randolph,  her  husband,  Colonel  Ran 
dolph,  and  the  two  oldest  of  their  unmarried  children,  Thomas  Jeffer 
son  and  Ellen ;  and  I  assure  you  I  have  seldom  met  a  pleasanter 
party. 

The  evening  passed  away  pleasantly  in  general  conversation,  of 
which  Mr.  Jefferson  was  necessarily  the  leader.  I  shall  probably  sur 
prise  you  by  saying  that,  in  conversation,  he  reminded  me  of  Dr. 
Freeman.  He  has  the  same  discursive  manner  and  love  of  paradox, 
with  the  same  appearance  of  sobriety  and  cool  reason.  He  seems 
equally  fond  of  American  antiquities,  and  especially  the  antiquities 
of  his  native  State,  and  talks  of  them  with  freedom  and,  I  suppose, 
accuracy.  He  has,  too,  the  appearance  of  that  fairness  and  simplicity 
which  Dr.  Freeman  has  ;  and,  if  the  parallel  holds  no  further  here, 
they  will  again  meet  on  the  ground  of  their -love  of  old  books  and. 
young  society. 

On  Sunday  morning,  after  breakfast,  Mr.  Jefferson  asked  me  into 
his  library,  and  there  I  spent  the  forenoon  of  that  day  as  I  had  that 
of  yesterday.  This  collection  of  books,  now  so  much  talked  about, 
consists  of  about  seven  thousand  volumes,  contained  in  a  suite  of 
fine  rooms,  and  is  arranged  in  the  catalogue,  and  on  the  shelves,  ac 
cording  to  the  divisions  and  subdivisions  of  human  learning  by  Lord 
Bacon.  In  so  short  a  time  I  could  not,  of  course,  estimate  its  value, 
even  if  I  had  been  competent  to  do  so. 

Perhaps  the  most  curious  single  specimen  —  or,  at  least,  the  most 
characteristic  of  the  man  and  expressive  of  his  hatred  of  royalty  —  was 
a  collection  which  he  had  bound  up  in  six  volumes,  and  lettered 
"  The  Book  of  Kings,"  consisting  of  the  "  Memoires  de  la  Princesse  de 


36  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1791-1815. 

Bareith,"  two  volumes  ;  "  Les  Memoires  de  la  Comtesse  de  la  Motte," 
two  volumes  ;  the  "  Trial  of  the  Duke  of  York,"  one  volume  ;  and 
"  The  Boole,"  one  volume.  These  documents  of  regal  scandal  seemed 
to  be  favorites  with  the  philosopher,  who  pointed  them  out  to  me 
with  a  satisfaction  somewhat  inconsistent  with  the  measured  gravity 
he  claims  in  relation  to  such  subjects  generally. 

On  Monday  morning  I  spent  a  couple  of  hours  with  him  in  his 
study.  He  gave  me  there  an  account  of  the  manner  in  which  he 
passed  the  portion  of  his  time  in  Europe  which  he  could  rescue  from 
public  business  ;  told  me  that  while  he  was  in  France  he  had  formed 
a  plan  of  going  to  Italy,  Sicily,  and  Greece,  and  that  he  should  have 
executed  it,  if  he  had  not  left  Europe  in  the  full  conviction  that  he 
should  immediately  return  there,  and  find  a  better  opportunity.  He 
spoke  of  my  intention  to  go,  and,  without  my  even  hinting  any  pur 
pose  to  ask  him  for  letters,  told  me  that  he  was  now  seventy-two 
years  old,  and  that  most  of  his  friends  and  correspondents  in  Europe 
had  died  in  the  course  of  the  twenty-seven  years  since  he  left  France, 
but  that  he  would  gladly  furnish  me  with  the  means  of  becoming  ac 
quainted  with  some  of  the  remainder,  if  I  would  give  him  a  month's 
notice,  and  regretted  that  their  number  was  so  reduced. 

The  afternoon  and  evening  passed  as  on  the  two  days  previous  ;  for 
everything  is  done  with  such  regularity,  that  when  you  know  how  one 
day  is  filled,  I  suppose  you  know  how  it  is  with  the  others.  At  eight 
o'clock  the  first  bell  is  rung  in  the  great  hall,  and  at  nine  the  second 
summons  you  to  the  breakfast-room,  where  you  find  everything 
ready.  After  breakfast  every  one  goes,  as  inclination  leads  him,  to 
his  chamber,  the  drawing-room,  or  the  library.  The  children  retire 
to  their  school-room  with  their  mother,  Mr.  Jefferson  rides  to  his  mills 
on  the  Rivanna,  and  returns  at  about  twelve.  At  half  past  three  the 
great  bell  rings,  and  those  who  are  disposed  resort  to  the  drawing- 
room,  and  the  rest  go  to  the  dining-room  at  the  second  call  of  the 
bell,  which  is  at  four  o'clock.  The  dinner  was  always  choice,  and 
served  in  the  French  style  ;  but  no  wine  was  set  on  the  table  till  the 
cloth  was  removed.  The  ladies  sat  until  about  six,  then  retired,  but 
returned  with  the  tea-tray  a  little  before  seven,  and  spent  the  evening 
with  the  gentlemen  ;  which  was  always  pleasant,  for  they  are  obvi 
ously  accustomed  to  join  in  the  conversation,  however  high  the  topic 
may  be.  At  about  half  past  ten,  which  seemed  to  be  their  usual  hour 
of  retiring,  I  went  to  my  chamber,  found  there  a  fire,  candle,  and  a 
servant  in  waiting  to  receive  my  orders  for  the  morning,  and  in  the 
morning  was  waked  by  his  return  to  build  the  fire. 


M.  1  -  23.]  MR.   JEFFERSON.  37 

To-day,  Tuesday,  we  told  Mr.  Jefferson  that  we  should  leave  Mon- 
ticello  in  the  afternoon.  He  seemed  much  surprised,  and  said  as 
much  as  politeness  would  permit  on  the  badness  of  the  roads  and  the 
prospect  of  bad  weather,  to  induce  us  to  remain  longer.  It  was  evi 
dent,  I  thought,  that  they  had  calculated  on  our  staying  a  week.  At 
dinner,  Mr.  Jefferson  again  urged  us  to  stay,  not  in  an  oppressive 
way,  but  with  kind  politeness  ;  and  when  the  horses  were  at  the 
door,  asked  if  he  should  not  send  them  away ;  but,  as  he  found  us 
resolved  on  going,  he  bade  us  farewell  in  the  heartiest  style  of  South 
ern  hospitality,  after  thrice  reminding  me  that  I  must  write  to  him 
for  letters  to  his  friends  in  Europe.  I  came  away  almost  regretting 
that  the  coach  returned  so  soon,  and  thinking,  with  General  Hamil 
ton,  that  he  was  a  perfect  gentleman  in  his  own  house. 

Two  little  incidents  which  occurred  while  we  were  at  Monticello 
should  not  be  passed  by.  The  night  before  we  left,  young  Randolph 
came  up  late  from  Charlottesville,  and  brought  the  astounding  news 
that  the  English  had  been  defeated  before  New  Orleans  by  General 
Jackson.  Mr.  Jefferson  had  made  up  his  mind  that  the  city  would 
fall,  and  told  me  that  the  English  would  hold  it  permanently  —  or  for 
some  time  —  by  a  force  of  Sepoys  from  the  East  Indies.  He  had  gone 
to  bed,  like  the  rest  of  us  ;  but  of  course  his  grandson  went  to  his 
chamber  with  the  paper  containing  the  news.  But  the  old  philoso 
pher  refused  to  open  his  door,  saying  he  could  wait  till  the  morning  ; 
and  when  we  met  at  breakfast  I  found  he  had  not  yet  seen  it. 

One  morning,  when  he  came  back  from  his  ride,  he  told  Mr.  Ran 
dolph,  very  quietly,  that  the  dam  had  been  carried  away  the  night 
before.  From  his  manner,  I  supposed  it  an  affair  of  small  conse 
quence,  but  at  Charlottesville,  on  my  way  to  Richmond,  I  found  the 
country  ringing  with  it.  Mr.  Jefferson's  great  dam  was  gone,  and  it 
would  cost  $  30,000  to  rebuild  it. 

There  is  a  breathing  of  notional  philosophy  in  Mr.  Jefferson,  —  in 
his  dress,  his  house,  his  conversation.  His  setness,  for  instance, 
in  wearing  very  sharp  toed  shoes,  corduroy  small-clothes,  and  red 
plush  waistcoat,  which  have  been  laughed  at  till  he  might  perhaps 
wisely  have  dismissed  them. 

So,  though  he  told  me  he  thought  Charron,  "  De  la  Sagesse,"  the 
best  treatise  on  moral  philosophy  ever  written,  and  an  obscure  Review 
of  Montesquieu,  by  Dupont  de  Nemours,  the  best  political  work 
that  had  been  printed  for  fifty  years,  —  though  he  talked  very  freely 
of  the  natural  impossibility  that  one  generation  should  bind  another 
to  pay  a  public  debt,  and  of  the  expediency  of  vesting  all  the  legisla- 


38  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOE.  [1791-1815. 

tive  authority  of  a  State  in  one  branch,  and  the  executive  authority  in 
another,  and  leaving  them  to  govern  it  by  joint  discretion,  —  I  con 
sidered  such  opinions  simply  as  curious  indicia  of  an  extraordinary 
character. 

GEORGETOWN,  February  19,  1815. 

....  This  evening,  Mr.  Sullivan,  Colonel  Perkins,  and  myself 
passed  delightfully  at  Mr.  Thomas  Peter's,  who  married  Miss  Nellie 
Custis,  granddaughter  of  Mrs.  Washington,  whom  you  see  in  the  pic 
ture  of  "  The  Washington  Family."  They  are  both  of  the  Boston 
stamp  in  politics  ;  and  while  Mr.  Peter,  as  an  extraordinary  treat  for 
an  extraordinary  occasion,  regaled  the  "  delegates  "  with  a  bottle  of 
wine  from  General  Washington's  cellar,  Mrs.  Peter  gave  me  an 
account  of  her  grandfather's  mode  of  life  and  intercourse  with  his 
family.  He  rose  at  six  during  the  whole  year,  and  breakfasted  pre 
cisely  at  seven  in  the  summer  and  at  eight  in  winter.  After  break 
fast  he  went  to  his  study  for  an  hour,  which  he  devoted  to  writing 
letters  ;  then  rode  out,  and  was  absent  on  his  plantation  till  two  ; 
returned  and  dressed  for  dinner  carefully  ;  sat  down  to  table  at  three, 
without  waiting  for  any  guests  whom  he  might  have  invited  ;  re 
mained  at  table  all  the  afternoon,  if  there  were  strangers  who  could 
claim  such  civility,  but  otherwise  retired  soon  to  his  study  ;  came  to 
tea  at  seven  or  eight,  and  finished  the  evening  with  his  family  and 
friends. 

Mrs.  Peter  also  gave  us,  with  a  good  deal  of  vivacity,  the  best  ac 
count  I  have  ever  heard  of  the  proceedings  of  the  British  at  the  cap 
ture  of  Washington  ;  for,  as  she  said,  she  was  too  much  of  a  Tory  to 
run,  and  therefore  was  an  eyewitness  of  what  happened.  Of  her  poli 
tics  you  may  judge  by  the  names  of  her  daughters,  one  of  whom  she 
has  called  Columbia  Washington,  another  America  Pinkney,  and  a 
third  Britannia  Wellington.  What  familiar  abbreviations  they  use  in 
common  parlance  for  those  names  I  did  not  venture  to  inquire 

GEORGETOWN,  February,  1815. 

I  passed  the  whole  of  this  morning  in  the  Supreme  Court.  The 
room  in  which  the  Judges  are  compelled  temporarily  to  sit  is,  like 
everything  else  that  is  ofiicial,  uncomfortable,  and  unfit  for  the  pur 
poses  for  which  it  is  used.  They  sat  —  I  thought  inconveniently  — 
at  the  upper  end  ;  but,  as  they  were  all  dressed  in  flowing  black  robes, 
and  were  fully  powdered,  they  looked  dignified.  Judge  Marshall  is 
such  as  I  described  him  to  you  in  Kichmond  ;  Judge  Washington  is  a 
little,  sharp-faced  gentleman,  with  only  one  eye,  and  a  profusion  of 


2E.  1  -  23.]  MR.   PINKNEY.  39 

snuff  distributed  over  his  face  ;  and  Judge  Duval  very  like  the  late 
Vice-President.  The  Court  was  opened  at  half  past  eleven,  and  Judge 
Livingston  and  Judge  Marshall  read  written  opinions  on  two  causes. 

After  a  few  moments'  pause,  they  proceeded  to  a  case  in  which 
Dexter,  Pinkney,  and  Emmett  were  counsel.  It  was  a  high  treat,  I 
assure  you,  to  hear  these  three  lawyers  in  one  cause.  Pinkney 
opened  it  as  junior  counsel  to  Emmett  ;  and  it  was  some  time  before 
I  was  so  far  reconciled  to  his  manner  as  to  be  able  to  attend  properly 
to  his  argument.  His  person,  dress,  and  style  of  speaking  are  so  dif 
ferent  from  anything  which  I  ever  saw  before,  that  I  despair  of  being 
able  to  give  you  an  idea  of  him  by  description  or  comparison. 

You  must  imagine,  if  you  can,  a  man  formed  on  nature's  most  lib 
eral  scale,  who,  at  the  age  of  fifty,  is  possessed  with  the  ambition  of 
being  a  pretty  fellow,  wears  corsets  to  diminish  his  bulk,  uses  cosmet 
ics,  as  he  told  Mrs.  Gore,  to  smooth  and  soften  a  skin  growing  some 
what  wrinkled  and  rigid  with  age,  and  dresses  in  a  style  which  would 
be  thought  foppish  in  a  much  younger  man.  You  must  imagine  such 
a  man  standing  before  the  gravest  tribunal  in  the  land,  and  engaged 
in  causes  of  the  deepest  moment  ;  but  still  apparently  thinking  how 
he  can  declaim  like  a  practised  rhetorician  in  the  London  Cockpit, 
which  he  used  to  frequent.  Yet  you  must,  at  the  same  time,  imagine 
his  declamation  to  be  chaste  and  precise  in  its  language,  and  cogent, 
logical,  and  learned  in  its  argument,  free  from  the  artifice  and  affecta 
tion  of  his  manner,  and,  in  short,  opposite  to  what  you  might  fairly 
have  expected  from  his  first  appearance  and  tones.  And  when  you 
have  compounded  these  inconsistencies  in  your  imagination,  and 
united  qualities  which  on  common  occasions  nature  seems  to  hold 
asunder,  you  will,  perhaps,  begin  to  form  some  idea  of  what  Mr. 
Pinkney  is. 

He  spoke  about  an  hour,  and  was  followed  by  Mr.  Dexter,  who, 
with  that  cold  severity  which  seems  peculiarly  his  own,  alluded  to 
the  circumstance  of  his  being  left  alone  (his  coadjutor  not  having 
come)  to  meet  two  such  antagonists  ;  then  went  on  to  admit  all  that 
Mr.  Pinkney  had  said,  and  to  show  that  it  had  nothing  to  do  with  the 
case  in  hand,  and  finally  concluded  by  setting  up  an  acute,  and,  as 
I  suppose  it  will  prove,  a  successful  defence. 

Mr.  Emmett  closed  the  cause  in  a  style  different  from  either  of  his 
predecessors.  He  is  more  advanced  in  life  than  they  are  ;  but  he  is 
yet  older  in  sorrows  than  in  years.  There  is  an  appearance  of  prema 
ture  age  in  his  person,  and  of  a  settled  melancholy  in  his  countenance, 
which  may  be  an  index  to  all  that  we  know  of  himself  and  his  family. 
At  any  rate,  it  wins  your  interest  before  he  begins  to  speak. 


40  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1791-1815. 

He  was  well  possessed  of  his  cause,  and  spoke  with,  a  heartiness 
which  showed  that  he  desired  to  serve  his  client  rather  than  to  dis 
play  himself.  He  was  more  bold  and  free  in  his  language,  yet  per 
haps  equally  exact  and  perspicuous  ;  and  if  Mr.  Pinkney  was  more 
formally  logical,  and  Mr.  Dexter  more  coldly  cogent,  Mr.  Emmett 
was  more  persuasive. 

When  he  had  finished,  I  was  surprised  to  find  that  he  had  inter 
ested  me  so  much  that,  if  he  had  not  stopped,  I  should  have  lost  my 
dinner. 

February  21,  1815. 

I  was  in  court  all  this  morning.  The  session  was  opened  by  Judge 
Story  and  the  Chief  Justice,  who  read  elaborate  opinions.  During 
this  time  Mr.  Pinkney  was  very  restless,  frequently  moved  his  seat, 
and,  when  sitting,  showed  by  the  convulsive  twitches  of  his  face  how 
anxious  he  was  to  come  to  the  conflict.  At  last  the  judges  ceased  to 
read,  and  he  sprang  into  the  arena  like  a  lion  who  had  been  loosed 
by  his  keepers  on  the  gladiator  that  awaited  him. 

The  display  was  brilliant.  Notwithstanding  the  pretension  and 
vehemence  of  his  manner,  —  though  he  treated  Mr.  Emmett,  for 
Avhom  I  had  been  much  interested  yesterday,  with  somewhat  coarse 
contempt,  —  in  short,  notwithstanding  there  was  in  his  speech  great 
proof  of  presumption  and  affectation  ;  yet,  by  the  force  of  eloquence, 
logic,  and  legal  learning,  by  the  display  of  naked  talent,  he  made  his 
way  over  my  prejudices  and  good  feelings  to  my  admiration  and,  I 
had  almost  said,  to  my  respect.  He  left  his  rival  far  behind  him  ;  he 
left  behind  him,  it  seemed  to  me  at  the  moment,  all  the  public  speak 
ing  I  had  ever  heard.  With  more  cogency  than  Mr.  Dexter,  he  has 
more  vivacity  than  Mr.  Otis  ;  with  Mr.  Sullivan's  extraordinary  flu 
ency,  he  seldom  or  never  fails  to  employ  precisely  the  right  phrase  ; 
and  with  an  arrangement  as  logical  and  luminous  as  Judge  Jackson's, 
he  unites  an  overflowing  imagination.  It  is,  however,  in  vain  to  com 
pare  him  with  anybody  or  everybody  whom  we  have  been  in  the 
habit  of  hearing,  for  he  is  unlike  and,  I  suspect,  above  them  all. 

He  spoke  about  three  hours  and  a  half,  and  when  he  sat  down, 
Emmett  rose  very  gravely.  "  The  gentleman,"  said  the  grand  Irish 
man,  in  a  tone  of  repressed  feeling  which  went  to  my  heart,  —  "  the 
gentleman  yesterday  announced  to  the  court  his  purpose  to  show  that 
1  was  mistaken  in  every  statement  of  facts  and  every  conclusion  of 
law  which  1  had  laid  before  it.  Of  his  success  to-day  the  court  alone 
have  a  right  to  judge  ;  but  I  must  be  permitted  to  say  that,  in  my 
estimation,  the  manner  of  announcing  his  threat  of  yesterday,  and  of 


M.  1-23.]  CHARLES  CARROLL.  41 

attempting  to  fulfil  it  to-day,  was  not  very  courteous  to  a  stranger,  an 
equal,  and  one  who  is  so  truly  inclined  to  honor  his  talents  and  learn 
ing.  It  is  a  manner  which  I  am  persuaded  he  did  not  learn  in  the 
polite  circles  in  Europe,  to  which  he  referred,  and  which  I  sincerely 
wish  he  had  forgotten  there,  wherever  he  may  have  learnt  it." 

Mr.  Pinkney  replied  in  a  few  words  of  cold  and  inefficient  explana 
tion,  which  only  made  me  think  yet  less  well  of  him,  and  impelled 
me  to  feel  almost  sorry  that  I  had  been  obliged  so  much  to  admire 
his  high  talents  and  success.* 

BALTIMORE,  March  1,  1815. 

I  called  this  morning  on  the  venerable  Archbishop  Carroll.  The 
good  old  man  was  employed  in  writing  a  pastoral  letter  to  his  Massa 
chusetts  diocesan.  By  his  side  was  a  beautiful  copy  of  Tasso's  "  Jeru 
salem  Delivered,"  open  on  a  frame,  an  apt  indication  of  the  union  of 
letters  with  official  duties.  He  recollected  me,  inquired  after  Mr. 
Jefferson  and  his  library,  and  seemed  interested  in  what  I  told  him. 
When  I  came  away  he  bestowed  a  patriarchal  benediction  upon  me. 

I  dined  at  Mr.  Eobert  Oliver's,  with  a  large  company  of  some  of  the 
more  considerable  men  of  Maryland  ;  the  most  distinguished  being 
Mr.  Charles  Carroll,  the  friend  of  Washington,  one  of  the  three  sur 
viving  signers  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  at  one  time  Sena 
tor  of  the  United  States,  and  the  richest  landholder,  I  suppose,  in  the 
country.  At  eighty  he  reads  and  enjoys  his  classical  books  more 
than  most  young  men  of  the  present  generation.  He  is  a  specimen  of 
the  old  regime,  one  of  the  few  who  remain  to  us  as  monuments  of  the 
best  bred  and  best  educated  among  our  fathers.  He  wears  large  gold 
buckles  in  his  shoes  and  broad  lace  ruffles  over  his  hands  and  bosom, 
the  fashion,  I  suppose,  of  the  year  '60.  His  manner  has  a  grave  and 
stately  politeness,  and  his  tact  and  skill  in  conversation  lead  him  to 
the  subjects  most  familiar  to  his  hearer  Awhile  he  is  so  well  read  that 
he  appears  to  have  considered  each  himself. 

Mr.  Ticknor,  like  all  young  men  of  full  minds  and  warm 
hearts,  was  a  frequent  and  copious  correspondent.  Of  the  letters 
written  to  his  friends  before  his  departure  for  Europe,  many  are 
still  preserved,  and  of  these  two  are  given  as  specimens  of  his 
intellectual  activity  and  the  warmth  of  his  affections.  The 

*  The  case  in  which  Mr.  Pinkney  and  Mr.  Emmett  came  into  collision, 
described  in  this  letter,  was  the  Nereide,  reported  in  9  Cranch,  388.  That 
spoken  of  in  the  previous  letter,  in  which  Mr.  Dexter  was  opposed  to  Mr. 
Pinkney  and  Mr.  Emmett,  must  have  been  The  Frances,  9  Cranch,  183. 


42  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1791-1815. 

sketch  of  Mr.  Jeffrey,  in  the  letter  to  Mr.  Daveis,  will  be  recog 
nized  as  an  admirable  pen-portrait,  especially  for  so  young  an 
artist.  The  power  of  drawing  characters  with  a  firm  and  dis 
criminating  touch  does  not  usually  come  till  later  in  life.  Mr. 
Jeffrey  came  to  America  in  a  cartel,  in  the  depth  of  winter. 
Having,  in  Edinburgh,  made  the  acquaintance  of  Miss  Wilkes, 
of  New  York,  he  crossed  the  ocean  to  seek  her  for  his  wife,  and 
won  her. 

To  EDWARD  T.  CHANNING. 

ESSEX  ST.,  April,  1812,  11  p.  M. 

DEAR  NED,  —  By  Jove,  you  are  a  rare  one  !  Natirre  may  run  over 
all  the  old  spoons  in  her  mint,  and  never  make  two  ninepences  like 
you.  Two  such  as  you  don't  come  in  one  generation.  "  Non  terra 
duos  soles,  neque  Asia,  duos  reges  tolerare  potest "  ;  and  if  two  Ned 
Channings  should  fall  together,  the  world  would  not  know  which  end 
it  stood  upon.  Only  an  hour  ago  you  went  off,  convincing  me  that  I 
was  a  fool,  and  did  not  know  my  Horace.  You  shut  up  my  mouth, 
when  I  was  right,  by  a  sleight  of  hand  peculiar  to  yourself  ;  and  these 
presents  are  to  let  you  know  that  I  shall  understand  you  for  the 
future. 

Touching  that  passage,  —  Sat.  1,  line  100,  —  the  facts  are  these. 
Horace,  in  conversation  with  a  miser,  endeavors  to  dissuade  him  from 
parsimony,  by  telling  him  that  one  Numidius  had  his  brains  beat  out 
for  it  by  his  servant.  This  wench  he  calls  "fortissima  Tyndari- 
darum,"  not  because  she  Was  one  of  the  descendants  of  Tyndarus,  but 
because  she  was  more  brave  than  the  daughters  of  Tyndarus,  Helen 
and  Clytemnestra,  who  had  murdered  their  husbands,  Deiphobus  and 
Agamemnon.  The  same  objection,  therefore,  lies  against  this,  which 
meets  us  in  Paradise  Lost,  Book  IV.  ;  for  Horace  had  no  more  right  to 
say  that  this  liberta  was  the  boldest  of  the  daughters  of  Tyndarus  — 
when  she  was  none  of  them  —  than  Milton  had  to  call  "  Adam  the 
goodliest  man  of  men  since  born  his  sons." 

The  cases,  you  must  confess,  are  parallel,  and,  to  save  your  feelings, 
literary  vanity,  etc.,  etc.,  I  will  acknowledge  that  the  case  of  Milton 
is  the  strongest  and  most  obvious. 

Homer,  however,  settles  the  whole  question.  He  says  that  Thetis 
went  to  heaven  and  implored  Jupiter  to  honor  her  son,  telling  him, 
as  a  motive,  that  his  life  would  be  very  short.  But,  on  your  ground, 
how  could  he  be  the  most  short-lived  of  the  rest  ? 


J£.  1-23.]  MR.   JEFFREY.  43 

My  last  example  is  similar  to  this  one.  In  enumerating  the  Gre 
cian  heroes,  and  assigning  them  their  several  qualities  and  virtues,  he 
gives  Nereus  beauty. 

Here  it  is  again.  Milton  is  a  fool  to  this  !  The  example  is  tangi 
ble,  —  it  cannot  be  evaded  ;  you  may  as  well  try  to  jump  clear  of 
space,  or  forget  yourself  into  nonentity,  as  to  run  away  from  it.  To 
make  assurance  doubly  certain,  however,  I  will  show  you,  on  the  au 
thority  of  Pope,  that  I  have  not  mistaken  the  meaning  of  the  passages 
I  cite.  The  first  is  done  badly  enough,  to  be  sure  :  — 

"  Some  mark  of  honor  on  my  son  bestow, 
And  pay  in  glory  what  in  life  you  owe. 
Fame  is  at  least  by  heav'nly  promise  due 
To  life  so  short,"  etc. 

This  is  miserable  enough  ;  the  other  is  better  :  — 

"  Nereus,  in  faultless  shape  and  blooming  grace, 
The  loveliest  youth  of  all  the  Grecian  race." 

I  suppose  you  are  convinced  against  your  will  ;  and  I  know  from 
Hudibras  what  I  am  to  expect  in  such  a  case  ;  but  still,  in  spite  of 
precedent  and  authority,  I  calculate  on  your  submission  to  Horace, 
Homer,  Milton,  and  George  Ticknor  !  Vive  atque  vale. 

To  CHAKLES  S.  DAVEIS,  PORTLAND. 

BOSTON,  February  8, 1814. 

"  If  all  the  world  had  their  deserts,"  said  the  heir-apparent  of  Den 
mark  in  my  hearing  last  night,  "who  sBould  escape  whipping?" 
And  so,  my  dear  Charles,  though  I  knew  when  I  received  your  letter, 
a  few  moments  ago,  that  it  was  a  great  deal  more  than  I  deserved,  yet 
I  felt  much  less  compunction,  I  fear,  than  I  ought,  and  less  than  I 
should  have  felt,  if  I  had  not  been  persuaded  that  other  people  were 
the  objects  of  greater  kindness  than  they  merit 

I  had  seriously  intended  to  send  you  a  sketch  of  the  Abraham  of 
the  "  Edinburgh  Eeview,"  while  I  was  running  over  with  specula 
tions  and  opinions  about  him  ;  and  as  you  seem  to  regret  that  I  did 
not,  and  as  it  is  impossible  to  hear  too  much  about  a  man  who  exer 
cises  some  influence  over  every  one  of  us,  I  think  I  may  venture  to 
give  you  a  page  about  him. 

You  are  to  imagine,  then,  before  you,  a  short,  stout,  little  gentleman, 
about  five  and  a  half  feet  high,  with  a  very  red  face,  black  hair,  and 
black  eyes.  You  are  to  suppose  him  to  possess  a  very  gay  and  ani- 


44  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1791-1815. 

mated  countenance,  and  you  are  to  see  in  him  all  the  restlessness  of 
a  will-o'-wisp,  and  all  that  fitful  irregularity  in  his  movements  which 
you  have  heretofore  appropriated  to  the  pasteboard  Merry  Andrews 
whose  limbs  are  jerked  about  with  a  wire.  These  you  are  to  interpret 
as  the  natural  indications  of  the  impetuous  and  impatient  character 
which  a  further  acquaintance  develops. 

He  enters  a  room  with  a  countenance  so  satisfied,  and  a  step  so 
light  and  almost  fantastic,  that  all  your  previous  impressions  of  the 
dignity  and  severity  of  the  "  Edinburgh  Keview "  are  immediately 
put  to  flight,  and,  passing  at  once  to  the  opposite  extreme,  you  might, 
perhaps,  imagine  him  to  be  frivolous,  vain,  and  supercilious.  He 
accosts  you,  too,  with  a  freedom  and  familiarity  which  may,  perhaps, 
put  you  at  your  ease  and  render  conversation  unceremonious  ;  but 
which,  as  I  observed  in  several  instances,  were  not  very  tolerable  to 
those  who  had  always  been  accustomed  to  the  delicacy  and  decorum 
of  refined  society.  Mr.  Jeffrey,  therefore,  I  remarked,  often  suffered 
from  the  prepossessions  of  those  he  met,  before  any  regular  conversa 
tion  commenced,  and  almost  before  the  tones  of  his  voice  were  heard. 
It  is  not  possible,  however,  to  be  long  in  his  presence  without  under 
standing  something  of  his  real  character,  —  for  the  same  promptness 
and  assurance  which  mark  his  entrance  into  a  room  carry  him  at  once 
into  conversation.  The  moment  a  topic  is  suggested  —  no  matter 
what  or  by  whom  —  he  comes  forth,  and  the  first  thing  you  observe 
is  his  singular  fluency. 

He  bursts  upon  you  with  a  torrent  of  remarks,  and  you  are  for 
some  time  so  much  amused  with  his  earnestness  and  volubility,  that 
you  forget  to  ask  yourself  whether  they  have  either  appropriateness  or 
meaning.  When,  however,  you  come  to  consider  his  remarks  closely, 
you  are  surprised  to  find  that,  notwithstanding  his  prodigious  rapid 
ity,  the  current  of  his  language  never  flows  faster  than  the  current  of 
his  thoughts.  You  are  surprised  to  discover  that  he  is  never,  like 
other  impetuous  speakers,  driven  to  amplification  and  repetition  in 
order  to  gain  time  to  collect  and  arrange  his  ideas  ;  yeu  are  surprised 
to  find  that,  while  his  conversation  is  poured  forth  in  such  a  fervor 
and  tumult  of  eloquence  that  you  can  scarcely  follow  or  comprehend 
it,  it  is  still  as  compact  and  logical  as  if  he  were  contending  for  a  vic 
tory  in  the  schools  or  for  a  decision  from  the  bench. 

After  all  this,  however,  you  do  not  begin  to  understand  Mr.  Jef 
frey's  character ;  for  it  is  not  until  you  become  interested  in  the  mere 
discussion,  until  you  forget  his  earnestness,  his  volubility,  and  his 
skill,  that  you  begin  to  feel  something  of  the  full  extent  of  his  powers. 


JE.  1-23-]  MR.   JEFFREY.  45 

You  do  not,  till  then,  see  with  how  strong  and  steady  a  hand  he  seizes 
the  subject,  and  with  what  ease,  as  well  as  dexterity,  he  turns  and 
examines  it  on  every  side.  You  are  not,  until  then,  convinced  that 
he  but  plays  with  what  is  the  labor  of  ordinary  minds,  and  that  half 
his  faculties  are  not  called  into  exercise  by  what  you  at  first  supposed 
would  tax  his  whole  strength.  And,  after  all,  you  are  able  to  esti 
mate  him,  not  by  what  you  witness,  —  for  he  is  always  above  a  topic 
which  can  be  made  the  subject  of  conversation,  —  but  by  what  you 
imagine  he  would  be  able  to  do  if  he  were  excited  by  a  great  and  dif 
ficult  subject  and  a  powerful  adversary. 

With  all  this,  he  preserves  in  your  estimation  a  transparent  simpli 
city  of  character.  You  are  satisfied  that  he  does  nothing  for  effect 
arid  show  ;  you  see  that  he  never  chooses  the  subject,  and  never  leads 
the  conversation  in  such  a  way  as  best  to  display  his  own  powers  and 
acquirements.  You  see  that  he  is  not  ambitious  of  being  thought  a 
wit ;  and  that,  when  he  has  been  most  fortunate  in  his  argument  or 
illustration,  he  never  looks  round,  as  some  great  men  do,  to  observe 
what  impression  he  has  produced  upon  his  hearers.  In  short,  you 
could  not  be  in  his  presence  an  hour  without  being  convinced  that  he 
has  neither  artifice  nor  affectation  ;  that  he  does  not  talk  from  the 
pride  of  skill  or  of  victory,  but  because  his  mind  is  full  to  overflow 
ing,  and  conversation  is  his  relief  and  pleasure. 

But,  notwithstanding  everybody  saw  and  acknowledged  these  traits 
in  Mr.  Jeffrey's  character, '  he  was  very  far  from  winning  the  good 
opinion  of  all.  There  were  still  not  a  few  who  complained  that  he 
was  supercilious,  and  that  he  thought  himself  of  a  different  and  higher 
order  from  those  he  met ;  that  he  had  been  used  to  dictate  until  he 
was  unwilling  to  listen,  and  that  he  had  been  fed  upon  admiration 
until  it  had  become  common  food,  and  he  received  it  as  a  matter  of 
course. 

There  is  some  ground  for  this  complaint ;  but  I  think  the  circum 
stances  of  the  case  should  take  its  edge  from  censure.  It  seems  to  me 
that  Mr.  Jeffrey  has  enough  of  that  amiable  feeling  from  which  polite 
ness  and  the  whole  system  of  the  petite  morale  springs,  but  that  he 
has  not  learned  the  necessary  art  of  distributing  it  in  judicious  pro 
portions.  He  shows  the  same  degree  of  deference  to  every  one  he 
meets  ;  and,  therefore,  while  he  flatters  by  his  civility  those  who  are 
little  accustomed  to  attention  from  their  superiors,  he  disappoints  the 
reasonable  expectations  of  those  who  have  received  the  homage  of  all 
around  them  until  it  has  become  a  part  of  their  just  expectations  and 
claims. 


46  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1791-1815. 

This,  at  least,  was  the  distinction  here.  The  young  men  and  the 
literary  men  all  admired  him  ;  the  old  men  and  the  politicians  found 
their  opinions  and  dignity  too  little  regarded  by  the  impetuous  stran 
ger.  The  reasons  of  this  are  to  be  sought,  I  should  think,  in  his  edu 
cation  and  constitution  ;  and  I  was,  therefore,  not  disposed  to  like 
him  the  less  for  his  defect.  I  was  not  disposed  to  claim  from  a  man 
who  must  have  passed  his  youth  in  severe  and  solitary  study,  and 
who  was  not  brought  into  that  class  of  society  which  refines  and  fash 
ions  all  the  external  expressions  of  character,  until  his  mind  and 
habits  were  matured,  and  he  was  brought  there  to  be  admired  and  to 
dictate,  —  I  was  not  disposed  to  claim  from  him  that  gentleness  and 
delicacy  of  manners  which  are  acquired  only  by  early  discipline,  and 
which  are  most  obvious  in  those  who  have  received,  perhaps,  their 
very  character  and  direction  from  early  collision  with  their  superiors 
in  station  or  talents. 

Besides,  even  admitting  that  Mr.  Jeffrey  could  have  been  early 
introduced  to  refined  society,  still  I  do  not  think  his  character  would 
have  been  much  changed  ;  or,  if  it  had  been,  that  it  would  have  been 
changed  for  the  better.  I  do  not  think  it  would  have  been  possible  to 
have  drilled  him  into  the  strict  forms  of  society  and  bienstfance  with 
out  taking  from  him  something  we  should  be  very  sorry  to  lose. 

There  seems  to  me  to  be  a  prodigious  rapidity  in  his  mind  which 
could  not  be  taken  away  without  diminishing  its  force  ;  and  yet  it  is 
this  rapidity,  I  think,  which  often  offended  some  of  my  elder  friends, 
in  the  form  of  impatience  and  abruptness.  He  has,  too,  a  promptness 
and  decision  which  contribute,  no  doubt,  to  the  general  power  of  his 
mind,  and  certainly  could  not  be  repressed  without  taking  away  much 
of  that  zeal  which  carries  him  forward  in  his  labors,  and  gives  so 
lively  an  interest  to  his  conversation  ;  yet  you  could  not  be  an  hour 
in  his  presence  without  observing  that  his  promptness  and  decision 
very  often  make  him  appear  peremptory  and  assuming. 

In  short,  he  has  such  a  familiar  acquaintance  with  almost  all  the 
subjects  of  human  knowledge,  and  consequently  such  an  intimate 
conviction  that  he  is  right,  and  such  a  habit  of  carrying  his  point  ;  he 
passes,  as  it  seems  to  me,  with  such  intuitive  rapidity  from  thought  to 
thought,  and  subject  to  subject,  —  that  his  mind  is  completely  occu 
pied  and  satisfied  with  its  own  knowledge  and  operations,  and  has  no 
attention  left  to  bestow  on  the  tones  and  manners  of  expression.  He 
is,  in  fact,  so  much  absorbed  with  the  weightier  matters  of  the  discus 
sion, —with  the  subject,  the  argument,  and  the  illustrations,  —  that 
he  forgets  the  small  tithe  of  humility  and  forbearance  which  he  owes 


M.  1-23.]  MR.   JEFFREY.  47 

to  every  one  with  whom  he  converses  ;  and  I  was  not  one  of  those 
who  ever  wished  to  correct  his  forgetfulness,  or  remind  him  of  his 
debt. 

You  will  gather  from  these  desultory  and  diffuse  remarks,  that  I 

was  very  much  delighted  with  Mr.  Jeffrey All  that  he  knew 

—  and,  as  far  as  I  could  judge,  his  learning  is  more  extensive  than 
that  of  any  man  I  ever  met  —  seemed  completely  incorporated  and 
identified  with  his  own  mind  ;  and  I  cannot,  perhaps,  give  you  a  bet 
ter  idea  of  the  readiness  with  which  he  commanded  it,  and  of  the 
consequent  facility  and  fluency  of  his  conversation,  than  by  saying, 
with  Mr.  Ames,  that  "  he  poured  it  out  like  water." 

You  have  by  this  time,  I  suspect,  heard  enough  of  Mr.  Jeffrey  ;  at 
any  rate,  it  is  a  great  deal  more  than  I  thought  I  should  send  you 
when  I  began,  as  soon  as  I  received  yours.  I  was  very  soon  inter 
rupted.  The  next  day  was  Edward  Everett's  ordination,  but  still  I 
wrote  a  little.  Yesterday  I  added  another  page,  and  this  morning 
(February  11)  have  finished  it.  I  hope  it  has  coherence  and  con 
sistency 

Yours  affectionately, 

GEO.  TICKNOH. 


48  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1815. 


CHAPTEE    III. 

Departure  for  Europe.  — Arrival  in  England.  —  State  of  feeling  there. 

—  Mr.  Roscoe.  —  Chirk  Castle,.  —  Dr.  Parr.  —  Arrival  in  London.  — 
Mr.    Vaughan.  — Mr.   Sharp.  —  Sir  Humphry  Davy.  —  Gifford.  — 
Lord  Byron.  —  Anecdotes  of  Bonaparte.  —  Mr.  Murray.  — Mr.  West. 

—  Mr.   Campbell.  —  Mrs.  Siddons.  —  Leaves  London.  —  Arrival  in 
Gottingen. 

MR.  TICKNOR  was  now  twenty-three'  years  old,  in  full 
vigor  of  health  and  activity  of  mind,  having  faithfully 
used  his  powers  and  opportunities  for  the  acquisition  of  knowl 
edge,  both  of  books  and  men.  In  person  he  was  slight,  of 
medium  height,  and  well  proportioned.  He  was  light  and  active 
in  his  movements,  and  continued  so  through  life.  His  com 
plexion  was  dark  and  rich  ;  his  eyes,  large,  and  so  dark  that  they 
might  almost  be  called  black,  were  very  bright  and  expressive. 
His  hair,  also  dark,  was  thick,  and  inclined  to  curl.  His  memory 
was  exact  and  retentive,  enabling  him  to  enrich  conversation  with 
fact,  anecdote,  and  quotation.  His  vivacity  of  feeling,  quick 
perceptions,  and  ready  sympathy  not  only  made  him  socially 
attractive,  but  secured  him  attached  friends. 

He  was  cordially  welcomed  in  the  society  of  Boston,  and  was  a 
favored  guest  in  its  best  houses.  Intercourse  with  cultivated 
minds,  the  affection  of  a  few  friends  of  his  own  age  and  similar 
tastes,  and  the  happy  influences  of  his  home  were  necessities  to 
him ;  while,  with  fresh,  iinworn  spirits,  he  enjoyed,  like  others, 
the  forms  and  amusements  of  general  society. 

He  had  now  completed,  as  far  as  was  possible,  his  preparation 
for  a  residence  and  course  of  study  abroad ;  and,  on  reaching  home 
after  his  journey  to  Virginia,  found,  to  his  surprise,  that  his 
passage  had  been  taken  for  the  voyage.  During  his  absence 
several  of  his  friends  had  decided  to  go  to  Europe,  some  in 


&.  23.]  ARRIVAL  IN  LIVERPOOL.  49 

search  of  health  and  some  of  instruction ;  and  his  father,  antici 
pating  his  wishes,  had  secured  for  him  a  place  in  the  same  vessel. 
The  separation  from  home  cost  him  a  severe  struggle,  and 
nothing  could  have  enabled  him  to  keep  his  resolution  but  the 
clear  perception  that  it  was  the  only  means  by  which  he  could 
fit  himself  for  future  usefulness  in  the  path  he  had  chosen.  He 
sailed  in  the  Liverpool  packet,  on  the  16th  of  April,  1815.  He 
had  the  happiness  of  the  companionship  of  four  of  his  most  valued 
and  intimate  friends,  —  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Samuel  G.  Perkins,  Mr. 
Edward  Everett,  and  Mr.  Haven,  of  Portsmouth,  N.  H.  Among 
other  passengers  were  two  young  sons  of  Mr.  John  Quincy 
Adams,  on  their  way  to  join  their  father,  then  United  States 
Minister  at  St.  Petersburg. 

Mr.  Ticknor  wrote  many  pages  during  his  voyage  to  his  father 
and  mother,  full  of  affection  and  cheering  thoughts,  and  giving 
incidents  and  details,  to  amuse  their  solitary  hours.  The  last 
page  gives  his  first  natural  feeling  at  the  startling  news  that  met 
the  passengers  as  they  entered  the  Mersey. 

May  11,  1815,  evening. 

The  pilot  who  is  carrying  us  into  Liverpool,  told  us  of  Bonaparte's 
return  to  Paris,  and  re-establishment  at  the  head  of  the  French  Empire. 
We  did  not  believe  it ;  but  from  another  pilot-boat,  which  we  have 
just  spoken,  we  have  received  an  account  which  is  but  too  sufficient  a 
confirmation  of  the  story.  Even  in  this  age  of  tremendous  revolu 
tions,  we  have  had  none  so  appalling  as  this.  We  cannot  measure  or 

comprehend  it When   Napoleon  was  rejected  from  France, 

every  man  in  Christendom,  of  honest  principles  and  feelings,  felt  as  if 
a  weight  of  danger  had  been  lifted  from  his  prospects,  —  as  if  he  had 
a  surer  hope  of  going  down  to  his  grave  in  peace,  and  leaving  an 
inheritance  to  his  children.  But  now  the  whole  complexion  of  the 
world  is  changed  again God  only  can  foresee  the  consequen 
ces,  and  He  too  can  control  them.  Terrible  as  the  convulsion  may  be, 
it  may  be  necessary  for  the  purification  of  the  corrupt  governments  of 
Europe^and  for  the  final  repose  of  the  world. 

Many  years  later  he  dictated  his  recollections  of  the  state  of 
feeling  he  observed  on  his  arrival  in  England. 

In  May,  1815,  I  arrived  in  Liverpool.     When  I  left  Boston,  Bona 
parte  was  in  Elba,  and  all  Europe  in  a  state  of  profound  peace.     The 
VOL.  i.  3  D 


50  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1815. 

pilot  came  on  board  as  we  approached  the  mouth  of  the  Mersey,  and 
told  us  that  Bonaparte  was  in  Paris,  and  that  everything  was  pre 
paring  for  a  general  war  against  him.  Having  been  bred  in  the 
strictest  school  of  Federalism,  I  felt  as  the  great  majority  of  the 
English  people  felt,  in  that  anxious  crisis  of  their  national  affairs  ; 
but,  on  reaching  Liverpool,  I  soon  found  that  not  a  few  people  looked 
upon  the  matter  quite  differently.  Mr.  Roscoe,  mild  and  philosoph 
ical  in  his  whole  character,  was  opposed  to  the  war,  and,  at  a  dinner 
at  Allerton,  gave  the  usual  whig  argument  against  it,  in  a  manner 
that  very  much  surprised  me. 

On  my  way  up  to  London  I  stopped  at  Hatton,  and  made  a  visit  to 
Dr.  Parr.  H«  certainly  was  not  very  gentle  or  philosophic  in  his 
opposition.  "  Sir,"  said  he,  in  his  solemn,  dogmatical  manner,  with  his 
peculiar  lisp,  which  always  had  something  droll  about  it,  —  "  thir,  J 
should  not  think  I  had  done  my  duty,  if  I  went  to  bed  any  night 
without  praying  for  the  success  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte." 

Another  fact  belonging  to  this  period  and  state  of  feeling  in  Eng 
land  was  told  me  at  Keswick,  in  1819,  by  Mr.  Southey.  He  said 
that  in  the  spring  of  1815  he  was  employed  in  writing  an  article  for 
the  "  Quarterly  Review "  upon  the  life  and  achievements  of  Lord 
Wellington.  He  wrote  in  haste  the  remarkable  paper  which  has 
since  been  published  more  than  once,  and  the  number  of  the  "  Re 
view  "  containing  it  was  iirged  through  the  press,  so  as  to  influence 
public  opinion  as  much  as  possible,  and  to  encourage  the  hearts  of 
men  throughout  the  country  for  the  great  contest. 

At  the  same  time  a  number  of  the  "  Edinburgh  "  was  due.  Sir 
James  Mackintosh  had  written  an  able  and  elaborate  article,  to  show 
that  the  war  ought  to  have  been  avoided,  and  that  its  consequences  to 
England  could  only  be  unfortunate  and  inglorious.  The  number  was 
actually  printed,  stitched,  and  ready  for  distribution  ;  but  it  was 
thought  better  to  wait  a  little  for  fear  of  accidents,  and  especially  for 
the  purpose  of  using  it  instantly  after  the  first  reverse  should  occur, 
and  to  give  it  the  force  of  prophecy. 

The  battle  of  Waterloo  came  like  a  thunder-clap.  The  article  was 
suppressed,  and  one  on  "  Gall  and  his  Craiiiology  "  was  substituted 
for  it.  There  it  may  still  be  found.  I  think  Mr.  Southey  said  he 
had  seen  the  repudiated  article. 

While  in  Liverpool,  Mr.  Ticknor  made  the  acquaintance  of 
Mr.  Eoscoe,  then  in  the  enjoyment  of  wealth  as  well  as  fame, 


JE.  23.]  MR.    ROSCOE. 


and  gives  a  sketch  of  him  in  a  letter  to  his  friend,  Mr.  Da- 
veis  :  — 

"  Of  the  acquaintances  whom  I  found  or  formed  in  Liverpool,  I 
know  not  that  you  will  be  much  interested  to  hear  of  any  but  Mr. 
Koscoe,  whom  you  already  know  as  an  author,  and  probably  as  the 
Lorenzo  of  his  native  city  ;  for,  like  the  happy  subject  he  has  chosen, 
he  is  himself  a  lover  of,  and  a  proficient  in,  the  fine  arts,  and  has 
done  more  to  encourage  and  patronize  learning  than  all  his  fellow- 
citizens  put  together.  But  he  is  now  beginning  to  bend  with  age,  and 
has  retired  from  active  pursuits,  both  as  a  man  of  letters  and  a 
banker.  Still,  however,  he  loves  society,  and  his  fine  house  (Allerton 
Hall,  eight  miles  from  Liverpool)  is  open  to  all  strangers,  —  whose 
company  he  even  solicits.  There  he  lives  in  a  style  of  splendor  suited 
to  his  ample  fortune  ;  and,  what  is  singular,  he  lives  on  the  very 
estate  where  his  father  was  gardener  and  his  mother  housekeeper. 
There  I  passed  one  day  with  him,  and  called  on  him  afterwards  and 
spent  a  couple  of  hours,  and  found  him  exceedingly  simple  in  his 
manners,  and  uncommonly  pleasant  in  his  conversation. 

"  For  a  man  of  sixty-five,  his  vivacity  and  enthusiasm  were  very 
remarkable,  and  were  very  remarkably  expressed,  as  he  showed  me  a 
large  collection  of  Burns's  original  MSS.,  beginning  with  the  earliest 
effusions,  as  contained  in  the  copy-books  mentioned,  I  believe,  in  his 
brother's  letter  to  Dr.  Currie,  and  ending  with  the  last  letter  he  ever 
wrote, — the  letter  to  his  wife,  —  which,  if  I  recollect  right,  concludes 
Dr.  Currie's  collection.  These  papers,  Mr.  Roscoe  seems  to  preserve 
with  a  sort  of  holy  reverence,  and  he  read  me  from  among  them  sev 
eral  characteristic  love-letters,  and  some  Jacobite  pieces  of  poetry, 
which  have  never  been,  and  never  will  be  published,  with  a  degree 
of  feeling  which  would  have  moved  me  in  one  of  my  own  age,  and 
was  doubly  interesting  in  an  old  man." 

Mr.  Ticknor  left  Liverpool  on  the  1 7th  of  May,  and  arrived  in 
London  on  the  25th  of  the  same  month,  travelling  in  the  leisurely 
style  of  those  days  ;  passing  through  Chester,  St.  Asaph's,  Llan- 
gollen,  Shrewsbury,  Birmingham,  and  Warwick ;  everywhere 
charmed  with  the  aspect  of  a  rich  and  cultivated  country  glowing 
with  the  bloom  and  verdure  of  an  English  spring.  In  addition  to  a 
copious  correspondence  with  relatives  and  friends  at  home,  it  was 
his  custom  to  keep  full  journals  of  his  life  and  experiences  during 
his  whole  residence  in  Europe,  from  which  we  shall  often  draw. 


52  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1815. 


JOURNAL. 

May  20,  1815.  —  A  few  miles  after  we  left  the  valley  [Llangollen], 
to  which  we  cast  back  many  a  longing,  lingering  look,  we  came  to 
Chirk  Castle,  the  seat  of  the  Micldletons  ;  which  seeing,  in  all  its  more 
ancient  division,  one  extensive  monument  of  fidelity  to  the  Stuarts. 
Even  the  old  housekeeper,  who  showed  us  the  apartments,  was  a 
thorough  Jacobite.  The  banqueting-room  was  filled  with  pictures 
which  proved  their  sufferings  from  Cromwell,  and  their  loyalty  to 
their  sovereign  ;  and  the  chamber  of  state  was  preserved  with  a  sort 
of  reverence  in  the  same  condition,  with  the  same  tapestry,  furniture, 
and  bedclothes  that  it  had  when  Charles  I.  slept  there,  on  his  way  to 
his  ruin  at  Chester.  Among  the  fine  pictures  in  the  collection,  I  was 
struck  with  that  of  a  beautiful  lady,  with  an  uncommonly  meek  and 
subdued  expression  of  countenance,  and  dressed  in  the  humble  weeds 
of  a  nun.  I  inquired  of  the  old  housekeeper,  who  claimed  to  know 
the  private  history  of  every  piece  of  furniture  in  the  establishment, 
who  the  nun  was.  "  She  was  the  sister  of  Owen  Tudor,"  the  old  lady 
replied,  "  but  no  nun  at  all,  sir,  for  her  seventh  husband  was  a 
Middleton,  and  that 's  the  reason  the  picture  is  here.  They  tell  an 
odd  story,"  the  old  lady  went  on,  "  that  when  she  was  riding  to  the 
burying  of  her  fourth,  the  gentleman  she  was  beliind  —  for  it  was 
before  carriages  were  known  in  England  —  thought  it  was  best  to  be 
in  season,  and  so  put  the  question  to  her  as  they  came  home  from  the, 
grave.  She  told  him,  she  was  very  sorry  indeed  he  was  too  late,  but 
if  she  had  that  melancholy  office  to  perform  again,  she  would  certainly 
remember  him." 

HATTON,  May  23,  1815.  —  Dr.  Parr  lives  at  Hatton,  but  four  miles 
from  Warwick,  and  I  was  resolved  not  to  pass  so  near  to  one  who  is 
the  best  Latin  scholar,  and  almost  the  best  Greek  one  in  England, 
without  seeing  him,  at  least  for  a  moment.  Mr.  Roscoe  had  volun 
teered  mfe  a  letter,  but  I  left  Liverpool  half  a  day  before  I  intended, 
and  the  consequence  was,  that  I  did  not  receive  it  till  I  reached 
London.  So  I  went  to  the  doctor's  with  a  traveller's  effrontery,  and 
sent  in  a  note,  asking  leave  to  visit  him,  as  a  stranger.  He  came  out 
to  the  carriage  immediately,  —  received  me  with  a  solemnity  of 
politeness  which  would  have  been  grotesque,  if  it  had  not  obviously 
been  well  meant,  —  carried  me  in,  asked  me  to  stay  to  dinner,  —  and 
come  again  when  I  had  more  time ;  and,  in  fact,  treated  me  with  as 
much  kindness  as  if  I  had  carried  a  volume  of  introductions.  He  is, 
I  should  think,  about  seventy  ;  and  though  a  good  deal  smaller,  looks 


;E.  23.]  DE.   PARR.  53 

somewhat  like  his  old  friend  Dr.  Johnson,  —  wears  just  such  a  coat 
and  waistcoat,  and  the  same  kind  of  dirty  bob-wig,  —  and  rolls  him 
self  about  in  his  chair,  as  Boswell  tells  us  Johnson  did.  His  conver 
sation  was  fluent  and  various,  —  full  of  declamation  and  sounding 
phrases  like  his  writings,  —  and  as  dictatorial  as  an  emperor's.  He 
chose  those  subjects  which  he  thought  would  be  most  interesting 
to  me  ;  and,  though  he  often  mistook  in  this,  he  never  failed  to  be 
amusing. 

On  American  politics,  he  was  bold  and  decisive.  He  thought  we 
had  ample  cause  for  war,  and  seemed  to  have  a  very  favorable  opinion 
of  our  principal  men,  such  as  Jeiferson  and  Madison,  and  our  late 
measures,  such  as  Monroe's  conscription  plan,  and  the  subject  of  tak 
ing  Canada, — though  it  was  evident  enough  that  he  knew  little  about 
any  of  them.  "  Thirty  years  ago,"  said  he  in  a  solemn  tone,  which 
would  have  been  worthy  of  Johnson,  — "  thirty  years  ago,  sir,  I 
turned  on  my  heel  when  I  heard  you  called  rebels,  and  I  was  always 
glad  that  you  beat  us."  He  made  some  inquiries  on  the  subject  of 
our  learning  and  universities,  of  which  he  was  profoundly  ignorant, 
and  spoke  of  the  state  of  religion  in  our  section  of  the  country  —  in 
particular  of  Dr.  Freeman's  alterations  of  the  Liturgy,  which  he  had 
seen  —  with  a  liberal  respect,  much  beyond  what  I  should  have  ex 
pected  from  a  Churchman.  When  I  came  away,  he  followed  me  to 
the  door,  with  many  expressions  of  kindness,  and  many  invitations 
to  come  and  spend  some  time  with  him,  on  my  return  to  England, 
and  finally  took  leave  of  me  with  a  bow,  whose  stately  and  awkward 
courtesy  will  always  be  present  in  my  memory  whenever  I  think  of 
him. 

His  first  evening  in  London  was  spent  at  the  theatre,  witness 
ing  the  performance  of  Miss  O'JSTeil  in  "  The  Gamester,"  of  whom 
he  thus  writes  to  his  father :  "  I  can  truly  say  I  never  knew 
what  acting  was  until  I  saw  her.*  The  play  was  'The  Game 
ster.'  I  cried  like  a  school-boy,  to  the  great  amusement  of  the 
John  Bulls  who  were  around  me  in  the  pit.  All  night  my 
dreams  did  homage  to  the  astonishing  powers  of  this  actress,  and 
my  first  waking  imaginations  this  morning  still  dwelt  on  the 

*  This  must  be  taken  as  a  proof  of  the  power  Miss  O'Neil  exercised,  for  Mr. 
Ticknor  had  often  seen  Cooke  in  Boston,  and  placed  his  acting  above  that  of 
any  male  actor  whom  he  saw  in  Europe.  He  saw  Cooke  in  Shylock  nine  times 
in  succession,  generally  leaving  the  theatre  after  Shylock's  last  scene. 


54  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [181k 

hysterical  laugh  when  she  was  carried  off  the  stage.  I  absolutely 
dread  to  see  her  again." 

Mr.  Ticknor  remained  in  London  a  little  more  than  a  month, 
which  was  to  him  a  period  of  animated  interest  and  high  enjoy 
ment.  It  was  the  height  of  the  London  season,  when  Parlia 
ment  was  in  session,  and  the  great  metropolis  gathered  within 
its  folds  a  large  proportion  of  the  science,  literature,  and  art  of 
the  whole  country.  Uncommon  social  opportunities  were  held 
out  to  him,  and  the  kindness  with  which  he  was  received  was  an 
unbiassed  tribute  to  his  social  gifts ;  for  London  society,  though 
hospitable,  is  fastidious,  and  will  not  tolerate  any  one  who  cannot 
contribute  his  fair  share  to  the  common  stock  of  entertainment. 
In  some  respects  his  good  fortune  was  rare  and  exceptional,  for  it 
so  happened  that  he  saw  frequently,  and  on  easy  and  familiar 
terms,  Lord  Byron,  the  most  brilliant  man  of  letters  in  England, 
and  Sir  Humphry  Davy,  the  most  brilliant  man  of  science. 
Every  hour  of  his  time  was  agreeably  filled  with  'social  engage 
ments  or  visits  to  the  many  points  of  interest  with  which  his 
reading  had  made  him  familiar,  and  the  high  pulse  of  his  enjoy 
ment  is  felt  in  his  letters  and  journals. 

To  ELISHA  TICKNOB. 

LONDON,  May  26,  1815. 

At  last,  my  dear  father,  I  address  you  from  this  great  city I 

feel  no  uncommon  elation  at  finding  myself  in  the  world's  metropolis. 
I  only  feel  that  I  am  in  the  midst  of  a  million  of  people,  whom  I 
know  not,  and  that  I  am  driven  forward  by  a  crowd  in  whose  objects 

and  occupations  and  thoughts  I  have  no  share  or  interest 

I  fear,  my  dear  father,  that  you  may  be  anxious  about  my  going  to 
the  Continent,  in  consequence  of  the  change  of  affairs  in  France.  I 

assure  you  there  is  not  the  least  occasion  for  anxiety It  is 

not  at  all  dangerous.  Mr.  Adams,  who  arrived  in  town  the  same 
day  that  we  did,  assures  us  there  is,  and  will  be,  no  hazard  or 
embarrassment  in  going  now,  or  after  hostilities  have  commenced, 
even  directly  to  France,  much  less  to  Holland,  and  to  a  university 
which  knows  no  changes  of  war  or  peace.  Besides,  Americans 
are  now  treated  with  the  most  distinguished  kindness  and  courtesy 
wherever  they  are  known  to  be  such.  This  I  know  from  the 


&.  23.]  CONVERSATION  SHARP.  55 

testimony  of  very  many  of  our  countrymen,  who  have  just  re 
turned  from  France  and  Germany.  But  not  only  Americans,  but 
Englishmen  go  every  day  to  the  Continent,  without  molestation.  I 

pray  you,  therefore,  be  perfectly  easy,  for  I  shall  run  no  risk 

We  left  Liverpool  on  the  17th,  and  arrived  here  on  the  25th,  and  are 
just  settled  in  our  respective  lodgings,  and  ready  to  present  our  letters 
of  introduction. 

JOURNAL. 

May  30.  —  To-day  I  dined  at  Mr.  William  Vaughan's,  the  brother 
of  Mr.  Benjamin  Vaughan,  of  Hallo  well,  and  of  Mr.  John  Vaughan,  of 
Philadelphia,  and  as  actively  kind  and  benevolent  as  either  of  them. 
Dr.  Rees,  the  editor  of  the  Cyclopsedia,  was  there,  and,  though  now 
past  seventy,  and  oppressed  with  the  hydrothorax,  he  still  retains  so 
much  of  the  vigor  and  vivacity  of  youth,  that  I  think  he  may  yet 
live  to  complete  the  great  work  he  has  undertaken.  He  is  a  specimen, 
in  excellent  preservation,  of  the  men  of  letters  of  the  last  century, 
and  is  full  of  stories  in  relation  to  them,  which  are  very  amusing. 
He  was  present,  and  gave  us  a  lively  account  of  Dilly's  famous 
dinner,  when  Wilkes  won  his  way,  as  Boswell  says,  by  his  wit  and 
good-humor,  but,  as  Dr.  Rees  says,  by  the  grossest  flattery,  to  Dr. 
Johnson's  heart.  Dr.  Rees  said,  that  long  before  Johnson's  death  it 
was  understood  that  Boswell  was  to  be  his  biographer,  and  that  he 
always  courted  Boswell  more  than  anybody  else,  that  he  might  be 
sure  of  the  point  of  view  in  which  he  was  to  be  exhibited  to  pos 
terity.  Boswell,  in  his  turn,  ruined  his  fortune  and  alienated  the 
affections  of  his  wife,  by  living  so  much  of  his  time  —  at  considerable 
expense  —  in  London,  that  he  might  be  near  his  subject  and  in  good 
society. 

June  6.  —  We  dined  at  Mr.  Vaughan's  with  several  men  of  letters, 
but  I  saw  little  of  them,  excepting  Mr.  Sharp,  formerly  a  Member  of 
Parliament,  and  who,  from  his  talents  in  society,  has  been  called  "Con 
versation  Sharp."  He  has  been  made  an  associate  of  most  of  the  liter 
ary  clubs  in  London,  from  the  days  of  Burke  down  to  the  present  time. 
He  told  me  a  great  many  amusing  anecdotes  of  them,  and  particularly 
of  Burke,  Person,  and  Grattan,  with  whom  he  had  been  intimate  ;  and 
occupied  the  dinner-time  as  pleasantly  as  the  same  number  of  hours 
have  passed  with  me  in  England. 

He  gave  me  a  new  reading  in  Macbeth,  from  Henderson,  to  whom 
Mrs.  Siddons  once  read  her  part  for  correction,  when  Mr.  Sharp  was 
present.  The  common  pointing  and  emphasis  is  :  — 


56  LIFE  OP  GEORGE  TICKNOK.  [1815. 

Macbeth.  If  we  should  fail  ? 

Lady  Macbeth.     We  fail. 
But  screw  your  courage  to  the  sticking  place, 
And  we  '11  not  fail. 

"  No,"  said  Henderson,  on  hearing  her  read  it  thus,  "  that  is  incon 
sistent  with  Lady  Macbeth's  character.  She  never  permits  herself 
to  doubt  their  success,  and  least  of  all  when  arguing  with  her  husband. 
Read  it  thus,  Mrs.  Siddons  :  — 

Macbeth.  If  we  should  fail  ? 

Lady  Macbeth  (with  contempt).  We  fail  ? 
But  screw  your  courage  to  the  sticking  place 
And  we  '11  not  fail." 

June  7.  —  This  morning  I  breakfasted  with  Mr.  Sharp,  and  had  a 
continuation  of  yesterday,  —  more  pleasant  accounts  of  the  great  men 
of  the  present  day,  and  more  amusing  anecdotes  of  the  generation 
that  has  passed  away. 

After  breakfast  he  carried  me  through  the  Stock  Exchange  into 
the  London  Exchange,  the  square  area  of  a  large  stone  pile  built  in 
the  time  of  Charles  II.  ;  from  there  to  Lloyd's  Coffee-House,  and 
finally  to  Guildhall. 

To  MR.  AND  MRS.  TICKNOR. 

LONDON,  June  8,  1815. 

....  I  cannot  tell  you  how  happy  your  letters  have  made  me. 
It  is  all  well,  and  I  am  sure  home  must  still  be  to  you  what  it  always 
has  been  to  me,  the  place  of  all  content  and  happiness.  You,  my  dear 
father,  are  now,  I  suppose,  at  Hanover,  and  I  know  all  that  you  are 

enjoying  there Tell  the  children  how  dear  they  will  be  to  me 

wherever  I  may  go,  and  do  not  suffer  them  to  forget  me,  for  there 
are  few  things  I  should  dread  so  much  as  to  return,  after  my  long  and 
wearisome  absence,  and  find  the  little  hearts  that  parted  from  me  in  so 
much  affection  receiving  me  as  a  stranger.  You,  dear  mother,  are 
at  any  rate  at  home,  and  I  fear  may  have  some  wearisome  hours  in 
your  solitude.  Would  that  I  could  be  with  you,  to  relieve  them  of 
some  of  their  tediousness. 

....  England  and  London  have  much  more  than  satisfied  my 
expectations,  as  far  as  I  have  seen  them,  which  is  only  on  the  sur 
face.  The  country  is  much  more  beautiful  than  I  thought  any 
country  could  be,  and  the  people  to  whom  I  have  presented  letters 
are  much  less  cold,  and  more  kind  and  hospitable,  than  I  expected 
them  to  be. 


&.  23.]  SIR  HUMPHRY  DAVY.  57 

JOURNAL. 

June  13.  —  I  breakfasted  this  morning  with  Sir  Humphry  Davy, 
of  whom  we  have  heard  so  much  in  America.  He  is  now  about 
thirty-three,  but  with  all  the  freshness  and  bloom  of  five-and-twenty, 
and  one  of  the  handsomest  men  I  have  seen  in  England.  He  has  a 
great  deal  of  vivacity,  —  talks  rapidly,  though  with  great  precision, 

—  and  is  so   much  interested  in   conversation,  that  his  excitement 
amounts  to  nervous  impatience,  and  keeps  him  in  constant  motion. 
He  has  just  returned  from  Italy,  and  delights  to  talk  of  it,  —  thinks 
it,  next  to  England,  the  finest  country  in  the  world,  and  the  society 
of  Home  surpassed  only  by  that  of  London,  and  says  he  should  not 
die  contented  without  going  there  again. 

It  seemed  singular  that  his  taste  in  this  should  be  so  acute,  when 
his  professional  eminence  is  in  a  province  so  different  and  remote  ;  but 
I  was  much  more  surprised  when  I  found  that  the  first  chemist  of 
his  time  was  a  professed  angler  ;  and  that  he  thinks,  if  he  were 
obliged  to  renounce  fishing  or  philosophy,  that  he  should  find  the 
struggle  of  his  choice  pretty  severe. 

Lady  Davy  was  unwell,  and  when  I  was  there  before,  she  was  out, 
so  I  have  not  yet  seen  the  lady  of  whom  Mad.  de  Stae'l  said,  that  she 
has  all  Corinne's  talents  without  her  faults  or  extravagances. 

After  breakfast  Sir  Humphry  took  me  to  the  Royal  Institution, 
where  he  used  to  lecture  before  he  married  a  woman  of  fortune  and 
fashion,  and  where  he  still  goes  every  day  to  perform  chemical  ex 
periments  for  purposes  of  research.  He  showed  me  the  library  and 
model-room,  his  own  laboratory  and  famous  galvanic  troughs,  and  at 
two  o'clock  took  me  to  a  lecture  there,  by  Sir  James  Smith,  on  botany, 

—  very  good  and  very  dull. 

June  15.  —  As  her  husband  had  invited  me  to  do,  I  called  this  morn 
ing  on  Lady  Davy.  I  found  her  in  her  parlor,  working  on  a  dress, 
the  contents  of  her  basket  strewed  about  the  table,  and  looking  more 
like  home  than  anything  since  I  left  it.  She  is  small,  with  black 
eyes  and  hair,  a  very  pleasant  face,  an  uncommonly  sweet  smile,  and, 
when  she  speaks,  has  much  spirit  and  expression  in  her  countenance. 
Her  conversation  is  agreeable,  particularly  in  the  choice  and  variety 
of  her  phraseology,  and  has  more  the  air  of  eloquence  than  I  have 
ever  heard  before  from  a  lady.  But,  then,  it  has  something  of  the 
appearance  of  formality  and  display,  which  injures  conversation. 
Her  manner  is  gracious  and  elegant ;  and,  though  I  should  not  think 
of  comparing  her  to  Corinne,  yet  I  think  she  has  uncommon 

powers 

3 


58  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1815. 

June  16.  —  We  dined  at  Mr.  Vaughan's,  with  Dr.  Schwabe,  a 
learned  German  clergyman,  who  gave  us  considerable  information  on 
the  state  of  letters  in  Germany  ;  Mr.  Maltby,  the  successor  of  Por- 
son  in  the  London  Institution,  (Gifford  says  he  is  the  best  Greek 
scholar  left,  since  Poison's  death),  and  Elmsley,  the  writer  of  the 
Greek  articles  in  the  "  Quarterly  Review."  *  He  expressed  to  me 
his  surprise  that  I  spoke  so  good  English,  and  spoke  it,  too,  without  an 
accent,  so  that  he  should  not  have  known  me  from  an  Englishman. 
This  is  the  first  instance  I  have  yet  met  of  this  kind  of  ignorance. 
He  is  himself  a  cockney. 

June  19.  —  Among  other  persons,  I  brought  letters  to  Gifford,  the 
satirist,  but  never  saw  him  until  yesterday.  Never  was  I  so  mistaken 
in  my  anticipations.  Instead  of  a  tall  and  handsome  man,  as  I  had 
supposed  him  from  his  picture,  —  a  man  of  severe  and  bitter  remarks 
in  conversation,  such  as  I  had  good  reason  to  believe  him  from  his 
books,  I  found  him  a  short,  deformed,  and  ugly  little  man,  with  a 
large  head  sunk  between  his  shoulders,  and  one  of  his  eyes  turned 
outward,  but,  withal,  one  of  the  best-natured,  most  open  and  well- 
bred  gentlemen  I  have  met.  He  is  editor  of  the  "  Quarterly  Review," 
and  was  not  a  little  surprised  and  pleased  to  hear  that  it  was  re 
printed  with  us,  which  I  told  him,  with  an  indirect  allusion  to  the 
review  of  Inchiquin.  He  very  readily  took  up  the  subject,  and  de 
fended  that  article,  on  the  ground  that  it  was  part  of  the  system  of 
warfare  which  was  going  on  at  that  time,  —  and  I  told  him  that  it 
had  been  answered  on  the  same  ground,  and  in  the  same  temper.  As 
he  seemed  curious  to  know  something  about  the  answer,  I  told  him  I 
would  send  it  to  him  ;  and,  as  he  is  supposed  to  be  the  author  of  the 
article  in  question,  I  could  hardly  have  sent  it  to  a  better  market. 
He  carried  me  to  a  handsome  room  over  Murray's  bookstore,  which 
he  has  fitted  up  as  a  sort  of  literary  lounge,  where  authors  resort  to 
read  newspapers  and  talk  literary  gossip.  I  found  there  Elmsley, 
Hallam,  —  Lord  Byron's  "  Classic  Hallam.,  much  renowned  for  Greek," 
now  as  famous  for  being  one  of  his  lordship's  friends,  —  Boswell,  a 
son  of  Johnson's  biographer,  etc.,  so  that  I  finished  a  long  forenoon 
very  pleasantly. 

June  20.  —  I  called  on  Lord  Byron  to-day,  with  an  introduction 
from  Mr.  Gifford.  Here,  again,  my  anticipations  were  mistaken.  In 
stead  of  being  deformed,  as  I  had  heard,  he  is  remarkably  well  built, 
with  the  exception  of  his  feet.  Instead  of  having  a  thin  and  rather 

*  In  a  note  subsequently  added,  Mr.  Tieknor  stated  that  Elmsley  was  not  the 
writer  of  the  articles  ascribed  to  him. 


,E.  23.]  LORD  BYRON.  59 

sharp  and  anxious  face,  as  he  has  in  his  pictures,  it  is  round,  open, 
and  smiling  ;  his  eyes  are  light,  and  not  black  ;  his  air  easy  and 
careless,  not  forward  and  striking  ;  and  I  found  his  manners  affable 
and  gentle,  the  tones  of  his  voice  low  and  conciliating,  his  conversa 
tion  gay,  pleasant,  and  interesting  in  an  uncommon  degree.  I  stayed 
with  him  about  an  hour  and  a  half,  during  which  the  conversation 
wandered  over  many  subjects.  He  talked,  of  course,  a  great  deal 
about  America  ;  wanted  to  know  what  was  the  state  of  our  literature, 
how  many  universities  we  had,  whether  we  had  any  poets  whom  we 
much  valued,  and  whether  we  looked  upon  Barlow  as  our  Homer. 
He  certainly  feels  a  considerable  interest  in  America,  and  says  he 
intends  to  visit  the  United  States  ;  but  I  doubt  whether  it  will  not 
be  indefinitely  postponed,  like  his  proposed  visit  to  Persia.  I  an 
swered  to  all  this  as  if  I  had  spoken  to  a  countryman,  and  then 
turned  the  conversation  to  his  own  poems,  and  particularly  to  his 
"  English  Bards,"  which  he  has  so  effectually  suppressed  that  a  copy  is 
not  easily  to  be  found.  He  said  he  wrote  it  Avhen  he  was  very 
young  and  very  angry ;  which,  he  added,  were  "  the  only  circum 
stances  under  which  a  man  would  write  such  a  satire."  When  he 
returned  to  England,  he  said,  Lord  Holland,  who  treated  him  with 
very  great  kindness,  and  Rogers,  who  was  his  friend,  asked  him  to 
print  no  more  of  it,  and  therefore  he  had  suppressed  it.  Since  then, 
he  said,  he  had  become  acquainted  with  the  persons  he  had  satirized, 
and  whom  he  then  knew  only  by  their  books,  —  was  now  the  friend  of 
Moore,  the  correspondent  of  Jeffrey,  and  intimate  with  the  Words 
worth  school,  and  had  a  hearty  liking  for  them  all,  —  especially  .as 
they  did  not  refuse  to  know  one  who  had  so  much  abused  them.  Of 
all  the  persons  mentioned  in  this  poem,  there  was  not  one,  he  said, 
with  whom  he  now  had  any  quarrel,  except  Lord  Carlisle  ;  and,  as  this 
was  a  family  difference,  he  supposed  it  would  never  be  settled.  On 
every  account,  therefore,  he  was  glad  it  was  out  of  print ;  and  yet  he 
did  not  express  the  least  regret  when  I  told  him  that  it  was  circu 
lated  in  America  almost  as  extensively  as  his  other  poems.  As  to 
the  poems  published  during  his  minority,  he  said  he  suppressed  them 
because  they  were  not  worth  reading,  and  wondered  that  our  book 
sellers  could  find  a  profit  in  reprinting  them.  All  this  he  said 
without  affectation  ;  in  fact,  just  as  I  now  repeat  it.  He  gave  great 
praise  to  Scott  ;  said  he  was  undoubtedly  the  first  man  of  his  time, 
and  as  extraordinary  in  everything  as  in  poetry,  —  a  lawyer,  a  fine 
scholar,  endowed  with  an  extraordinary  memory,  and  blessed  with 
the  kindest  feelings. 


60  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOE.  [1815. 

Of  Gifford,  he  said  it  was  impossible  that  a  man  should  have  a  bet 
ter  disposition  ;  that  he  was  so  good-natured  that  if  he  ever  says 
a  bitter  thing  in  conversation  or  in  a  review  he  does  it  uncon 
sciously  ! 

Just  at  this  time  Sir  James  Bland  Burgess,  who  had  something  to 
do  in  negotiating  Jay's  Treaty,  came  suddenly  into  the  room,  and  said 
abruptly,  "  My  lord,  my  lord,  a  great  battle  has  been  fought  in  the 
Low  Countries,  and  Bonaparte  is  entirely  defeated."  "  But  is  it  true  ?  " 
said  Lord  Byron,  —  "  is  it  true  ? "  "  Yes,  my  lord,  it  is  certainly  true  ; 
an  aide-de-camp  arrived  in  town  last  night ;  he  has  been  in  Downing 
Street  this  morning,  and  I  have  just  seen  him  as  he  was  going  to  Lady 
Wellington's.  He  says  he  thinks  Bonaparte  is  in  full  retreat  to 
wards  Paris."  After  an  instant's  pause,  Lord  Byron  replied,  "  I  am 
d — d  sorry  for  it "  ;  and  then,  after  another  slight  pause,  he  added,  "  I 
did  n't  know  but  I  might  live  to  see  Lord  Castlereagh's  head  on  a 
pole.  But  I  suppose  I  sha'  n't,  now."  And  this  was  the  first  impres 
sion  produced  on  his  impetuous  nature  by  the  news  of  the  battle  of 
Waterloo 

As  I  was  going  away,  he  carried  me  up  stairs,  and  showed  me  his 
library,  and  collection  of  Romaic  books,  which  is  very  rich  and  very 
curious  ;  offered  me  letters  for  Greece  ;  and,  after  making  an  appoint 
ment  for  another  visit,  took  leave  of  me  so  cordially  that  I  felt  almost 
at  home  with  him. 

While  I  was  there,  Lady  Byron  came  in.  She  is  pretty,  not  beau 
tiful,  —  for  the  prevalent  expression  of  her  countenance  is  that  of 
ingenuousness.  "  Report  speaks  goldenly  of  her."  She  is  a  baroness 
in  her  own  right,  has  a  large  fortune,  is  rich  in  intellectual  endow 
ments,  is  a  mathematician,  possesses  common  accomplishments  in 
an  uncommon  degree,  and  adds  to  all  this  a  sweet  temper.  She  was 
dressed  to  go  and  drive,  and,  after  stopping  a  few  moments,  went  to 
her  carriage.  Lord  Byron's  manner  to  her  was  affectionate  ;  he  fol 
lowed  her  to  the  door,  and  shook  hands  with  her,  as  if  he  were  not  to 
see  her  for  a  month. 

June  21.  —  I  passed  an  hour  this  morning  very  pleasantly  indeed 
with  Sir  Humphry  Davy,  from  whom  I  have  received  great  courtesy 
and  kindness.  He  told  me  that  when  he  was  at  Coppet,  Mad.  de 
Stael  showed  him  part  of  a  work  on  England  similar  in  plan  to  her 
De  I'Allemagne,  but  which  will  be  only  about  two  thirds  as  long. 
Murray  told  me  she  had  offered  it  to  him,  and  had  the  conscience  to 
ask  four  thousand  guineas  for  it.  When  I  came  away,  Sir  Humphry 
gave  me  several  letters  for  the  Continent,  and  among  them  one  for  Can- 


M.  23.]  BONAPARTE  AT  ELBA.  61 

ova,  one  for  De  la  Hive  at  Geneva,  and  one  for  Mad.  de  Stae'l,  which  I 
was  very  glad  to  receive  from  him,  —  for  there  is  nobody  in  England 
whom  Mad.  de  Stae'l  more  valued,  —  though  I  have  already  two  other 
introductions  to  her.  I  parted  from  Sir  Humphry  with  real  regret. 
He  goes  out  of  town  to-morrow. 

We  dined  to-day  with  Mr.  Manning,  —  brother  of  Mrs.  Benjamin 
Vaughan,  —  a  very  intelligent  gentleman.  He  told  us  a  story  of 
Bonaparte,  which,  from  the  source  from  which  he  had  it,  is  likely  to 
be  true.  Lord  Ebrington,  son  of  Lord  Fortescue,  was  in  Elba,  and 
Bonaparte,  finding  he  was  the  nephew  of  Lord  Grenville,  asked  him 
to  dinner.  Nobody  was  present  but  Drouot,  who  soon  retired,  and 
left  the  host  and  the  English  guest  tete-d-tete.  The  nobleman  is  a 
modest,  indeed  bashful  man,  and  was  so  disconcerted  by  the  awk 
wardness  of  the  situation,  that  conversation  began  to  fail,  —  when 
Bonaparte  said  to  him,  "  My  lord,  at  this  rate  we  shall  soon  be 
dumb  ;  and  so  I  propose  to  you  that  you  shall  answer  all  the  ques 
tions  I  put  to  you,  and  then  I  will  answer  all  that  you  put  to  me." 
The  convention  was  accepted,  and  the  first  inquiry  .made  by  Bona 
parte  was,  whether  the  people  of  England  hated  him  as  much  as 
they  were  reported  to  hate  him.  To  this,  and  to  a  series  of  similar 
questions,  the  Englishman  answered  very  honestly,  as  he  says,  and 
in  return  asked  several  no  less  personal ;  for  his  courage,  like  that 
of  most  bashful  men,  on  being  roused,  went  to  the  opposite  extreme. 
Among  other  things,  he  inquired  about  the  murder  at  Jaffa,  and 
Bonaparte  admitted  it,  with  all  its  aggravations,  but  defended  him 
self  with  "  the  tyrant's  plea,  —  necessity."  Soon  after  this  they  sepa 
rated. 

There  was  a  Captain  Fuller  present,  who  was  in  one  of  the  frigates 
stationed  off  Elba  to  keep  in  Bonaparte  and  to  keep  out  the  Alge- 
rines.  He  told  us  several  anecdotes  of  the  rude  treatment  of  Bona 
parte  by  the  English  sailors,  which  were  very  amusing.  Among  them 
he  said  that  Captain  Towers,  or  "  Jack  Towers,"  as  he  called  him, 
gave  a  ball,  at  which  many  of  the  inhabitants  of  Elba  were  present, 
and  Bonaparte  was  invited. 

When  he  came  alongside,  and  was  announced,  the  dancing  stopped, 
out  of  compliment  to  him,  as  Emperor  ;  but  "  Jack  Towers  "  cried 
out,  "  No,  no,  my  boys,  none  of  that.  You  're  aboard  the  King's 
ship,  and  Bony 's  no  more  here  than  any  other  man.  So,  strike  up 
again."  The  band  was  English,  and  obeyed. 

When  they  first  received  an  intimation  of  the  unfriendly  disposi 
tions  of  the  Algerine  government,  and  before  their  determinations 


62  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1815. 

were  known,  two  of  the  frigates  went  down  to  Algiers,  to  ascertain  by 
personal  inquiry.  Captain  Fuller  and  the  other  captain  had  an  au 
dience  of  the  Dey,  but  the  only  answer  they  could  get  was  this  : 
"  Your  masters  were  fools,  when  they  had  the  Frenchman  in  their 
hands,  that  they  did  not  cut  off  his  head.  If  I  catch  him,  I  shall  act 
more  wisely." 

At  three  o'clock,  I  went  to  the  literary  exchange  at  Murray's  book 
store.  Gifford  was  there,  as  usual,  and  Sir  James  Burgess,  who,  I  find, 
is  the  man  of  whom  Cumberland  so  often  speaks,  and  in  conjunction 
with  whom  he  wrote  the  Exodiad  ;  and  before  long  Lord  Byron 
came  in,  and  stayed  out  the  whole  party.  I  was  glad  to  meet  him 
there  ;  for  there  I  saw  him  among  his  fellows  and  friends, — men  with 
whom  he  felt  intimate,  and  who  felt  themselves  equal  to  him.  The 
conversation  turned  upon  the  great  victory  at  Waterloo,  for  which 
Lord  Byron  received  the  satirical  congratulations  of  his  ministerial 
friends  with  a  good-nature  which  surprised  me.  He  did  not,  however, 
disguise  his  feelings  or  opinions  at  all,  and  maintained  stoutly,  to  the 
last,  that  Bonaparte's  case  was  not  yet  desperate. 

He  spoke  to  me  of  a  copy  of  the  American  edition  of  his  poems, 
which  I  had  sent  him,  and  expressed  his  satisfaction  at  seeing  it  in 
a  small  form,  because  in  that  way,  he  said,  nobody  would  be  pre 
vented  from  purchasing  it.  It  was  in  boards,  and  he  said  he  would 
not  have  it  bound,  for  he  should  prefer  to  keep  it  in  the  same  state  in 
which  it  came  from  America. 

He  has  very  often  expressed  to  me  his  satisfaction  at  finding  that 
his  works  were  printed  and  read  in  America,  with  a  simplicity  which 
does  not  savor  of  vanity  in  the  least. 

June  22.  —  I  dined  with  Murray,  and  had  a  genuine  booksellers' 
dinner,  such  as  Lintot  used  to  give  to  Pope  and  Gay  and  Swift ;  and 
Dilly,  to  Johnson  and  Goldsmith.  Those  present  were  two  Mr. 
Duncans,  Fellows  of  New  College,  Oxford,  Disraeli,  author  of  the 
"  Quarrels  and  Calamities  of  Authors,"  Gifford,  and  Campbell.  The 
conversation  of  such  a  party  could  not  long  be  confined  to  politics, 
even  on  the  day  when  they  received  full  news  of  the  Duke  of 
Wellington's  successes  ;  and,  after  they  had  drunk  his  health  and 
Bliicher's,  they  turned  to  literary  topics  as  by  instinct,  and  fiom  seven 
o'clock  until  twelve  the  conversation  never  failed  or  faltered. 

Disraeli,  who,  I  think,  is  no  great  favorite,  though  a  very  good- 
natured  fellow,  was  rather  the  butt  of  the  party.  The  two  Duncans 
were  acute  and  shrewd  in  correcting  some  mistakes  in  his  books. 
Gifford  sometimes  defended  him,  but  often  joined  in  the  laugh  ;  and 


M.  23.]  LORD   NELSON. 


Campbell,  whose  spirits  have  lately  been  much  improved  by  a  legacy 
of  ,£5,000,  was  the  life  and  wit  of  the  party.  He  is  a  short,  small 
man,  and  has  one  of  the  roundest  and  most  lively  faces  I  have  seen, 
amongst  this  grave  people.  His  manners  seemed  as  open  as  his 
countenance,  and  his  conversation  as  spirited  as  his  poetry.  He 
could  have  kept  me  amused  till  morning  ;  but  midnight  is  the  hour 
for  separating,  and  the  party  broke  up  at  once. 

June  23.  —  We  spent  half  the  forenoon  in  Mr.  West's  gallery,  where 

he  has  arranged  all  the  pictures  that  he  still  owns He  told 

us  a  singular  anecdote  of  Nelson,  while  we  were  looking  at  the  picture 
of  his  death.  Just  before  he  went  to  sea  for  the  last  time,  West  sat 
next  to  him  at  a  large  entertainment  given  to  him  here,  and  in  the 
course  of  the  dinner  Nelson  expressed  to  Sir  William  Hamilton  his 
regret,  that  in  his  youth  he  had  not  acquired  some  taste  for  art  and 
some  power  of  discrimination.  "But,"  said  he,  turning  to  West, 
"  there  is  one  picture  whose  power  I  do  feel.  I  never  pass  a  paint- 
shop  where  your  '  Death  of  Wolfe '  is  in  the  window,  without  being 
stopped  by  it."  West,  of  course,  made  his  acknowledgments,  and 
Nelson  went  on  to  ask  why  he  had  painted  no  more  like  it.  "  Be 
cause,  my  lord,  there  are  no  more  subjects."  "D — n  it,"  said  the 
sailor,  "  I  did  n't  think  of  that,"  and  asked  him  to  take  a  glass  of 
champagne.  "  But,  my  lord,  I  fear  your  intrepidity  will  yet  furnish 
me  such  another  scene  ;  and,  if  it  should,  I  shall  certainly  avail 
myself  of  it."  "  Will  you  1 "  said  Nelson,  pouring  out  bumpers,  and 
touching  his  glass  violently  against  West's,  —  "  will  you,  Mr.  West  1 
then  I  hope  that  I  shall  die  in  the  next  battle."  He  sailed  a  few  days 
after,  and  the  result  was  on  the  canvas  before  us. 

After  leaving  Mr.  West,  I  went  by  appointment  to  see  Lord  Byron. 
He  was  busy  when  I  first  went  in,  and  I  found  Lady  Byron  alone. 
She  did  not  seem  so  pretty  to  me  as  she  did  the  other  day  ;  but  what 
she  may  have  lost  in  regular  beauty  she  made  up  in  variety  and  ex 
pression  of  countenance  during  the  conversation.  She  is  diffident,  — 
she  is  very  young,  not  more,  I  think,  than  nineteen,  —  but  is  obviously 
possessed  of  talent,  and  did  not  talk  at  all  for  display.  For  the 
quarter  of  an  hour  during  which  I  was  with  her,  she  talked  upon  a 
considerable  variety  of  subjects,  —  America,  of  which  she  seemed  to 
know  considerable  ;  of  France,  and  Greece,  with  something  of  her 
husband's  visit  there,  —  and  spoke  of  all  with  a  justness  and  a  light 
good-humor  that  would  have  struck  me  even  in  one  of  whom  I  had 
heard  nothing.  •• 

With  Lord  Byron  I  had  an  extremely  pleasant  and   instructive 


64  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1815. 

conversation  of  above  an  hour.  He  is,  I  think,  simple  and  unaffected. 
When  he  speaks  of  his  early  follies,  he  does  it  with  sincerity ;  of 
his  journeys  in  Greece  and  the  East,  without  ostentation  ;  of  his  own 
works  he  talks  with  modesty,  and  of  those  of  his  rivals,  or  rather 
contemporaries,  with  justice,  generosity,  and  discriminating  praise. 
In  everything,  as  far  as  I  have  seen  him,  he  is  unlike  the  characters  of 
his  own  "  Childe  Harold  "  and  "  Giaour,"  and  yet,  those  who  know  him 
best  and  longest,  say  that  these  stories  are  but  the  descriptions  of  his 
early  excesses,  and  these  imaginary  characters  but  the  personification 
of  feelings  and  passions  which  have  formerly  been  active,  but  are  now 
dormant  or  in  abeyance.  Of  this,  of  course,  I  know  nothing,  but 
from  accounts  I  have  received  from  respectable  sources,  and  the 
internal  evidence,  which  I  have  always  thought  strongly  in  favor  of 
them. 

This  morning  I  talked 'with  him  of  Greece,  because  I  wished  to 
know  something  of  the  modes  of  travelling  there.  He  gave  me  a 
long,  minute,  and  interesting  account  of  his  journeys  and  adventures, 
not  only  in  Greece,  but  in  Turkey ;  described  to  me  the  character  and 
empire  of  Ali  Pacha,  and  told  me  what  I  ought  to  be  most  anxious  to 
see  and  investigate  in  that  glorious  country.  He  gave  me,  indeed, 
more  information  on  this  subject  than  all  I  have  before  gathered  from 
all  the  sources  I  have  been  able  to  reach  ;  and  did  it,  too,  with  so  much 
spirit,  that  it  came  to  me  as  an  intellectual  entertainment,  as  well  as 
a  valuable  mass  of  instruction. 

An  anecdote  was  told  me  to-day  of  the  Great  Captain,  which, 
as  it  is  so  characteristic,  and,  besides,  —  coming  to  me  only  at 
second-hand,  from  his  aid  who  brought  the  despatches,  —  so  surely 
authentic,  that  I  cannot  choose  but  record  it.  "  During  the  first  and 
second  days,"*  said  Major  Percy,  "we  had  the  worst  of  the  battle,  and 
thought  we  should  lose  it.  On  the  third  and  great  day,  from  the 
time  when  the  attack  commenced  in  the  morning  until  five  o'clock  in 
the  evening,  we  attempted  nothing  but  to  repel  the  French.  During 
all  this  time  we  suffered  most  terribly,  and  three  times  during  the 
course  of  the  day  we  thought  nothing  remained  to  us  but  to  sell  our 
lives  as  dearly  as  possible.  Under  every  charge  the  Duke  of  Wel 
lington  remained  nearly  in  the  same  spot  ;  gave  his  orders,  but  gave 
no  opinion,  —  expressed  no  anxiety,  —  showed,  indeed,  no  signs  of 
feeling.  They  brought  him  word  that  his  favorite  regiment  was 

*  By  the  "  first  and  second  days  "  Major  Percy  must  have  meant  the  battle  at 
Quatre  Bras  on  the  16th  and  the  retreat  to  Waterloo  on  the  17th.  The  battle 
of  Waterloo  was  begun  and  ended  in  one  day. 


M.  23.]  CAMPBELL.  65 

destroyed,  and  that  his  friends  had  fallen,  —  nay,  he  saw  almost  every 
one  about  his  person  killed  or  wounded,  —  but  yet  he  never  spoke  a 
word  or  moved  a  muscle,  looking  unchanged  upon  all  the  destruction 
about  him.  At  last,  at  five  o'clock,  the  fire  of  the  French  began  to 
slacken.  He  ordered  a  charge  to  be  made  along  the  whole  line,  —  a 
desperate  measure,  which,  perhaps,  was  never  before  ventured  under 
such  circumstances  ;  and  when  he  saw  the  alacrity  with  which  his 
men  advanced  towards  the  enemy,  then,  for  the  first  time,  laying  his 
hand  with  a  sort  of  convulsive  movement  on  the  pistols  at  his  saddle 
bow,  he  spoke,  as  it  were  in  soliloquy,  and  all  he  said  was,  '  That 
will  do  ! '  In  ten  minutes  the  route  of  the  French  was  complete. 
And  yet  this  great  man,  twice  in  India  and  once  in  Spain,  had  almost 
lost  his  reputation,  and  even  his  rank,  by  being  unable  to  control  the 
impetuosity  of  his  disposition.  In  the  night  one  of  his  aids  passed 
the  window  of  the  house  where  he  had  his  quarters,  and  found  him 
sitting  there.  He  told  the  Duke  he  hoped  he  was  well.  '  Don't 
talk  to  me  of  myself,  Major,'  he  said  ;  'I  can 'think  of  nothing,  and 
see  nothing,  but  the  Guards.  My  God  !  all  destroyed  !  It  seems  as 
if  I  should  never  sleep  again  ! '  This  was  his  favorite  regiment ;  and 
when  they  were  mustered,  after  the  battle,  out  of  above  a  thousand 
men,  less  than  three  hundred  answered." 

June  25.  —  Mr.  Campbell  asked  me  to  come  out  and  see  him  to-day, 
and  make  it  a  long  day's  visit.  So,  after  the  morning  service,  I  drove 
out,  and  stayed  with  him  until  nearly  nine  this  evening.  He  lives  in 
a  pleasant  little  box,  at  Sydenham,  nine  miles  from  town,  a  beautiful 
village,  which  looks  more  like  an  American  village  than  any  I  have 
seen  in  England.  His  wife  is  a  bonny  little  Scotchwoman,  with  a 
great  deal  of  natural  vivacity  ;  and  his  only  child,  a  boy  of  about  ten, 
an  intelligent  little  fellow,  but  somewhat  injured  by  indulgence,  I  fear. 
....  They  seem  very  happy,  and  have  made  me  so,  for  there  was  no 
one  with  them  but  myself,  except  an  old  schoolmate  of  Campbell's, 

now  a  barrister  of  considerable  eminence Campbell  had  the  same 

good  spirits  and  love  of  merriment  as,  when  I  met  him  before,  —  the 
same  desire  to  amuse  everybody  about  him ;  but  still  I  could  see,  as  I 
partly  saw  then,  that  he  labors  under  the  burden  of  an  extraordinary 
reputation,  too  easily  acquired,  and  feels  too  constantly  that  it  is 
necessary  for  him  to  make  an  exertion  to  satisfy  expectation.  The 
consequence  is,  that,  though  he  is  always  amusing,  he  is  not  always 
quite  natural. 

He  showed  me  the  biographical  and  critical  sketches  of  the  English 

Poets  which  he  is  printing They  will  form  three  volumes,  and 

E 


66  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1815. 

consist,  I  imagine,  chiefly  of  the  lectures  he  delivered  at  the  Institu 
tion,  newly  prepared  with  that  excessive  care  which  is  really  a  blem 
ish  in  his  later  works,  and  which  arises,  I  suppose,  in  some  degree  from 
a  constitutional  nervousness  which  often  amounts  to  disease. 

Lord  Byron  told  me  that  he  had  injured  his  poem  of  "  Gertrude," 
by  consulting  his  critical  friends  too  much,  and  attempting  to  recon 
cile  and  follow  all  their  advice.  His  lectures  at  the  Institution,  from 
the  same  cause,  though  extremely  popular  at  first,  gradually  became 
less  so,  though  to  the  last  they  were  remarkably  well  attended. 

June  26.  —  I  passed  the  greater  part  of  this  morning  with  Lord 
Byron.  When  I  first  went  in,  I  again  met  Lady  Byron,  and  had  a 
very  pleasant  conversation  with  her  until  her  carriage  came,  when  her 
husband  bade  her  the  same  affectionate  farewell  that  struck  me  the 
other  day.  Soon  after  I  went  in,  Mrs.  Siddoiis  was  announced  as  in 
an  adjoining  parlor.  Lord  Byron  asked  me  if  I  should  not  like  to  see 
her ;  and,  on  my  saying  I  should,  carried  me  in  and  introduced  me  to 
her.  She  is  now,  I  suppose,  sixty  years  old,  and  has  one  of  the  finest 
and  most  spirited  countenances,  and  one  of  the  most  dignified  and 
commanding  persons,  I  ever  beheld.  Her  portraits  are  very  faithful 
as  to  her  general  air  and  outline,  but  no  art  can  express  or  imitate  the 
dignity  of  her  manner  or  the  intelligent  illumination  of  her  face. 
Her  conversation  corresponded  well  with  her  person.  It  is  rather 
stately,  but  not,  I  think,  affected  ;  and,  though  accompanied  by  con 
siderable  gesture,  not  really  overacted.  She  gave  a  lively  description 
of  the  horrible  ugliness  and  deformity  of  David  the  painter  ;  told  us 
some  of  her  adventures  in  France,  a  year  ago  ;  and,  in  speaking  of 
Bonaparte,  repeated  some  powerful  lines  from  the  "  Venice  Preserved," 
which  gave  me  some  intimations  of  her  powers  of  acting.  She  formed 
a  singular  figure  by  Lady  Byron,  who  sat  by  her  side,  all  grace  and 
delicacy,  and  this  showed  Mrs.  Siddons's  masculine  powers  in  the 
stronger  light  of  comparison  and  contrast.  Her  daughter,  who  was 
with  her,  is  the  handsomest  lady  I  have  seen  in  England.  She  is 
about  twenty. 

After  she  was  gone,  the  conversation  naturally  turned  on  the  stage. 
Lord  Byron  asked  me  what  actors  I  had  heard,  and,  when  I  told  him, 
imitated  to  me  the  manner  of  Munden,  Braham,  Cooke,  and  Kemble, 
with  exactness,  as  far  as  I  had  heard  them.  Kemble  has  been  ill 
ever  since  I  arrived,  and  is  now  in  Scotland,  and  of  course  I  could  not 
judge  of  the  imitation  of  him. 

Afterwards  I  had  a  long  and  singular  conversation  with  Lord  Byron, 
in  which,  with  that  simplicity  which  I  have  uniformly  found  to  mark 


JE.  23.]  LORD  BYRON. 


his  character,  he  told  me  a  great  deal  of  the  history  of  his  early 
feelings  and  habits  ;  of  the  impressions  of  extreme  discontent  un 
der  which  he  wrote  "  Childe  Harold,"  which  he  began  at  Joannina 
and  finished  at  Smyrna  ;  and  of  the  extravagant  intention  he  had 
formed  of  settling  in  Greece,  which,  but  for  the  state  of  his  affairs, 
that  required  his  presence  in  England,  he  should  have  fulfilled.  The 
"  English  Bards  and  Scotch  Reviewers,"  he  told  me,  he  wrote  at  his 
paternal  estate  in  the  country,  the  winter  before  he  set  forth  on  his 
travels,  while  a  heavy  fall  of  snow  was  on  the  ground,  and  he  kept 
house  for  a  month,  during  which  time  he  never  saw  the  light  of  day, 
rising  in  the  evening  after  dark,  and  going  to  bed  in  the  morning 
before  dawn.  "  The  Corsair,"  he  told  me,  he  wrote  in  eleven  days,  and 
copied  on  the  twelfth,  and  added,  that  whenever  he  undertook  any 
thing,  he  found  it  necessary  to  devote  all  his  thoughts  to  it  until  he 
had  finished  it.  This  is  the  reason  why  he  can  never  finish  his 
"  Childe  Harold."  It  is  so  long  since  he  laid  it  aside,  that  he  said 
it  would  now  be  entirely  impossible  for  him  to  resume  it.  From 
some  of  his  remarks,  I  think  it  not  unlikely  that  he  may  next  turn 
his  thoughts  to  the  stage,  though  it  would  be  impossible,  in  a  mind 
constituted  like  his,  to  predict  the  future  from  the  present. 

After  all,  it  is  difficult  for  me  to  leave  him,  thinking  either  of  his 
early  follies  or  his  present  eccentricities  ;.  for  his  manners  are  so 
gentle,  and  his  whole  character  so  natural  and  unaffected,  that  I  have 
come  from  him  with  nothing  but  an  indistinct,  though  lively  im 
pression  of  the  goodness  and  vivacity  of  his  disposition. 

June  27.  —  This  evening  I  went  to  Drury  Lane,  to  see  Kean  in  the 
part  of  Leon.  Lord  Byron,  who  is  interested  in  this  theatre,  and  one 
of  its  managing  committee,  had  offered  me  a  seat  in  his  private  box. 
....  There  was  nobody  there,  this  evening,  but  Lord  and  Lady 
Byron,  and  her  father  and  mother.  It  was  indeed  only  a  very  pleas 
ant  party,  who  thought  much  more  of  conversation  than  of  the  per 
formance  ;  though  Kean  certainly  played  the  part  well,  much  better 
than  Cooper  does.  In  the  next  box  to  us  sat  M.  G.  Lewis  ;  a  very 
decent  looking  man  compared  with  the  form  my  imagination  had 
given  to  the  author  of  the  "  Monk,"  and  the  "  Castle  Spectre." 

Lord  Byron  was  pleasant,  and  Lady  Byron  more  interesting  than  I 
have  yet  seen  her.  Lord  Byron  told  me  one  fact  that  surprised  me 
very  much,  —  that  he  knew  the  Prince  Eegent  to  be  very  well  read 
in  English  literature,  and  a  pretty  good  scholar  in  Latin  and  Greek, 
the  last  of  which  he  had  known  him  to  quote  in  conversation.  Fas 
est  et  ab  hoste  doceri. 


68  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1815. 

Lady  Milbank,  Lady  Byron's  mother,  is  a  good-natured  old  lady,  — 
a  little  fashionable,  however,  I  fear,  —  and  her  husband,  a  plain,  re 
spectable  Englishman,  who  loves  politics,  and  hates  the  French  above 
everything.  The  afterpiece  was  "  Charles  the  Bold,"  a  genuine 
melodrama,  full  of  drums  and  trumpets,  and  thunder  and  music, 
and  a  specimen  of  the  state  of  the  English  stage,  which  I  had  never 
felt  fully  till  now.  However,  the  pleasant  conversation  in  the  box 
prevented  me  from  being  much  annoyed  by  the  piece,  and  I  was 
really  sorry  when  it  was  over  ;  and  I  shook  hands  with  Lord  Byron 
for  the  last  time  with  unexpected  regret. 

I  think  I  have  received  more  kindness  from  Lord  Byron  than  from 
any  person  in  England  on  whom  I  had  not  the  regular  claim  of  a 
letter  of  introduction.  Besides  the  letters  he  has  sent  me  for  Fauriel 
and  Ali  Pacha,  he  accompanied  the  last  with  a  present  of  a  splendid 
pistol,  which  is  to  insure  me  a  kind  reception  with  the  perverse 
Turk,  and  a  copy  of  his  own  poems,  and  one  of  Dr.  Holland's 
"  Travels  in  Greece,"  which  was  given  to  him  by  the  author,  —  with 
whom  he  has  authorized  me  to  use  his  name,  to  procure  further 
facilities  for  my  journey,  if  I  should  meet  him  on  the  Continent. 

June  29.  —  To-day,  after  some  trouble,  though  none  arising  un 
necessarily  in  the  public  offices,  I  have  obtained  my  passport,  and 
gone  through  the  melancholy  duty  of  calling  on  the  friends  who  have 
been  kind  to  me,  —  bade  farewell  to  the  loungers  at  Murray's  literary 
Exchange,  and  called  on  Lord  Byron,  who  told  me  that  he  yet  hoped 
to  meet  me  in  America.  He  said  he  never  envied  any  men  more 
than  Lewis  and  Clarke,  when  he  read  the  account  of  their  expedition. 

Mr.  Ticknor  left  London  on  the  30th  of  June  with  the  same 
delightful  party  of  friends  with  whom  he  had  crossed  the  ocean, 
and,  crossing  by  Harwich,  landed  at  Helvoetsluys.  There,  he 
says,  "We  took  the  only  two  machines  in  the  village,  —  a  coach, 
which  seemed  to  be  without  springs,  and  a  wagon,  which  did 
not  even  pretend  to  have  any,  —  to  transport  us  to  Eotterdam. 
Our  road,  the  whole  distance,  went  over  a  dyke,  and  some  por 
tions  of  it  were  on  the  coast,  'where  the  broad  ocean  leans 
against  the  land.' "  From  Eotterdam,  they  went  to  the  Hague, 
Leyden,  Haarlem,  Amsterdam,  and  Utrecht,  where  he  parted 
from  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Perkins,  and  Mr.  and  Miss  Haven;  and 
with  Mr.  Everett  and  young  Perkins,*  went  on  his  way  to 

*  To  be  placed  at  school  in  Gottiugen. 


M.  23.]  AMSTERDAM.  69 

Gottingen.  Of  this  parting,  he  says  :  "  It  was  not,  indeed,  like 
the  bitterness  of  leaving  home,  but  it  was  all  else,  and,  indeed,  in 
the  sense  of  desolation,  the  same.  For  more  than  three  months 
we  had  lived  together  as  one  family,  ....  and  the  affections 
which  had  long  existed  were  ripened  into  the  nearest  intimacy." 
On  the  13th  of  July,  at  Amsterdam,  he  tells  his  father  that 
he  has  been  busy  in  buying  books  and  seeing  sights,  and  then 
says  :  — 

"  The  country  itself  is  a  standing  miracle  perpetually  before  my  eyes, 
which  loses  none  of  its  power  to  excite  my  wonder  by  losing  its  novelty. 
It  is  impossible  to  give  any  good  reason  for  it,  but  I  cannot  entirely 
divest  myself  of  a  sensation  of  insecurity,  whenever  I  recollect  that 
I  am  living  many  feet  below  the  surface  of  the  sea,  and  protected 
from  its  inundation  only  by  works  of  human  invention  and  strength, 
which  in  other  cases  avail  so  little  against  the  power  of  the  element. 

"  When,  on  entering  Amsterdam,  I  passed  over  the  narrow  neck  that 
unites  it  to  the  mainland,  and  saw  the  sea  chafing  against  the  shores 
on  each  side  of  me,  much  higher  than  the  road  on  which  I  was  travel 
ling,  I  could  not  help  feeling  something  as  a  French  gentleman 
did,  who,  after  receiving  an  invitation  to  dine  in  Amsterdam,  had 
occasion  to  pass  over  the  isthmus  on  a  stormy  day,  when  the  ocean 
was  rather  more  violent  than  it  commonly  is,  and,  instead  of  return 
ing  to  observe  his  engagement,  hastened  to  the  Hague,  and  sent  back, 
for  an  excuse,  that  he  had  seen  the  water  breaking  over  the  dike,  and 
was  sure  that  Amsterdam  could  not  exist  two  days  longer  ;  and  yet 
nothing  can  be  more  absurd,  though  I  am  sure  nothing  can  be  more 
natural,  than  these  feelings  and  fears " 

From  Amsterdam  he  proceeded  directly  to  Gottingen,  where 
he  arrived  on  the  4th  of  August. 


70  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1815. 


CHAPTEE    IV. 

Residence  in  Gottingen  till  the  end  of  1815. —  University  Life.  —  His 
own  Studies.  —  Benecke,  Eichhorn,  Blumenbach,  Schultze,  Michaelis, 
Kiistner.  —  Wolf.  —  Excursion  to  Hanover. 

ON"  arriving  at  Gottingen,  which  was  to  be  Mr.  Ticknor's  home 
for  twenty  months,  he  felt  like  the  pilgrim  who  had  reached 
the  shrine  of  his  faith ;  here  he  found  the  means  and  instruments  of 
knowledge  in  an  abundance  and  excellence  such  as  he  had  never 
before  even  imagined.  Gottingen  was  at  that  time  the  seat  of 
the  leading  university  in  Germany,  occupying  much  the  same 
comparative  position  as  that  of  Berlin  does  now.  Founded  by 
George  II.,  it  owed  its  rank  and  eminence,  in  a  great  measure,  to 
the  fostering  care  of  the  king's  enlightened  Hanoverian  minister, 
Baron  Miinchausen,  who  watched  over  its  interests  with  a  vigi 
lance  and  constancy  which  had  something  of  the  warmth  of  per 
sonal  affection.  Another  of  its  benefactors,  in  a  different  way, 
was  the  illustrious  Heyne,  who  had  died  in  1812,  after  having 
been  connected  with  it,  in  various  capacities,  for  half  a  century. 
He  was  not  only  a  scholar  of  eminence  and  varied  attainments, 
and  an  unrivalled  teacher  in  the  department  of  philology,  but 
also  a  man  of  sound  practical  wisdom  and  tact  in  the  conduct 
of  life,  and  had,  for  many  years  before  his  death,  been  the  lead 
ing  spirit  in  the  government  and  administration  of  the  Univer 
sity.  His  high  and  wide  reputation  had  brought  to  it  a  great 
number  of  pupils. 

At  the  time  of  Mr.  Ticknor's  residence  in  Gottingen,  there 
were  many  distinguished  teachers  and  scholars  connected  with 
its  University,  such  as  Dissen,  Benecke,  Schultze,  Eichhorn,  and 
others,  and  especially  two  men  of  world-wide  fame,  —  Gauss 
in  mathematics,  and  Blumenbach  in  natural  history.  The  latter 


M.  24.]  GOTTINGEN.  71 

was  attracting  pupils  from  all  over  Europe,  not  merely  by  his 
immense  and  accurate  knowledge,  but  by  his  peculiar  felicity 
in  communicating  it.  His  learned  and  instructive  lectures  were 
brightened  by  a  rich  vein  of  native  humor,  which  was  always 
under  the  control  of  tact  and  good  sense,  and  never  degenerated 
into  buffoonery.  He  retained  to  the  last  the  high  spirits  of  a  boy, 
and  was  not  entirely  free  from  a  boy's  love  of  mischief.  Though 
not  much  interested  in  natural  history,  Mr.  Ticknor  attended 
the  lectures  of  Blumenbach,  who  seemed  to  have  formed  a 
strong  attachment  for  his  studious  and  animated  pupil  from  the 
far-distant  West.  Easy  and  cordial  relations  grew  up  between 
them,  and  when  Mr.  Ticknor  took  leave  of  the  great  naturalist, 
he  felt  almost  as  if  he  were  parting  from  a  European  father. 

The  way  of  life  into  which  he  fell  at  Gottingen,  continu 
ing  with  little  interruption  for  twenty  months,  was  not  only  in 
marked  contrast  with  his  brilliant  experience  in  London,  but 
was  unlike  that  which  he  had  been  accustomed  to  lead  at  home. 
Though  he  had  always  been  a  diligent  student,  yet  his  warm  do 
mestic  affections  and  strong  social  tastes  had  claimed  some  por 
tion  of  his  time ;  but  now  all  his  hours,  from  early  morning  till 
night,  were  given  to  hard  work,  unrelieved  by  either  amusement 
or  society.  A  daily  walk  with  his  friend  Mr.  Everett  was  all 
that  varied  the  monotony  of  continuous  study.  Having  never 
been  dependent  for  happiness  upon  amusements,  it  cost  him  little 
to  renounce  these ;  but  it  was  a  loss  and  a  sacrifice  to  give  up 
society,  —  that  full  and  free  exchange  of  feelings  and  opinions 
with  those  whom  we  love  and  trust,  which  is  one  of  the  highest 
pleasures  of  life.  His  only  relaxation  was  found  in  a  change  of 
employment. 

But  his  life  in  Gottingen  was  a  happy  one.  For  all  his  priva 
tions  and  sacrifices  there  was  this  great  compensation,  that  here, 
for  the  first  time,  a  deep  and  ever-flowing  fountain  was  opened 
to  him  in  which  his  passionate  love  of  knowledge  could  be 
slaked.  Here,  for  the  first  time,  he  was  made  to  understand  and 
feel  what  is  meant  by  instruction.  At  home  he  had  had  teachers, 
that  is,  he  had  had  men  who  knew  somewhat  more  than  he  did, 
to  whom  he  recited  his  lessons,  who  corrected  his  mistakes  and 


72  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1815. 

allowed  him  to  learn.  But  at  Gottingen  he  was  made  to  under 
stand  the  difference  between  reciting  to  a  man  and  being  taught 
by  him.  Here  he  took  lessons  in  Greek,  for  instance,  of  a 
scholar  who  had  not  only  learned  Greek  thoroughly,  but  had 
also  learned  the  art  of  teaching  it.  The  delight  he  took  in 
his  new  charters  and  privileges  was  in  proportion  to  his  ardent 
love  of  knowledge  and  his  previous  imperfect  opportunities  for 
gratifying  it. 

Another  source  of  happiness,  as  well  as  of  intellectual  growth, 
was  opened  to  him  at  Gottingen  in  its  magnificent  library  of 
over  two  hundred  thousand  volumes,  especially  rich  in  modern 
literature,  and  adminstered  so  liberally  that  any  number  of 
books  might  be  taken  from  it  and  kept  as  long  as  the  student 
had  any  need  of  them.  This  immense  treasury  of  knowledge 
was  all  the  more  impressive  and  the  more  welcome  from  its  con 
trast  with  the  meagre  collections  he  had  left  at  home.*  Every 
student  knows  what  a  pleasure  it  is  to  be  able  to  lay  his  hands 
on  every  book  he  wants  when  he  is  studying  a  subject,  as  well  as 
the  exaggerated  value  he  will  put  upon  the  particular  book  he 
cannot  find.  Here  our  ardent  young  scholar  could  be  sure  of 
lighting  upon  every  book  of  which  he  had  even  ever  heard  ;  and 
the  delight  with  which  his  eye  ran  along  the  endless  shelves  of 
the  University  library  was  only  tempered  by  the  sigh  called  forth 
by  the  thought  of  the  disproportion  between  these  boundless 
stores  of  knowledge  and  the  length  of  any  human  life,  or  the 
measure  of  any  human  powers. 

Mr.  Ticknor's  enjoyment  of  the  new  and  copious  sources  of 
knowledge  which  were  now  opened  to  him,  and  his  sense  of  the 
intellectual  growth  derived  from  them,  were  alloyed  both  by  the 
painful  comparison  he  was  forced  to  make  between  what  he 
found  in  Gottingen  and  what  he  had  left  at  home,  and  the  sad 
thought  of  how  much  more  he  might  have  done  and  known  if, 

*  Mr.  Ticknor  once  said  to  me  that  nothing  more  marked  the  change  pro 
duced  in  him  by  his  long  residence  in  Europe  than  the  different  impressions 
made  by  the  library  of  Harvard  College  before  his  departure  and  after  his 
return.  "  When  I  went  away,"  he  said,  "  I  thought  it  was  a  large  library  ; 
when  I  came  back,  it  seemed  a  closetful  of  books." 


M.  24.]  SCHULTZE.  73 

in  childhood  and  youth,*  he  had  had  the  advantages  he  was  now 
enjoying.  He  saw  men  around  him,  his  contemporaries,  not 
superior  to  him  in  capacity  or  industry,  but  far  beyond  him  in 
extent  and  accuracy  of  knowledge,  and  he  could  not  but  recall 
with  a  bitter  pang  the  precious  hours  he  had  lost  for  want  of 
books  and  teachers.  The  tone  of  his  correspondence,  however,  is 
never  desponding,  but  always  cheerful.  The  following  extract 
from  a  letter  to  his  father,  written  in  November,  1815,  —  cer 
tainly  not  a  season  of  exhilarating  influences  in  Northern  Ger 
many,  —  is  but  a  fair  specimen  of  the  spirit  which  animates  all 
his  communications. 

"  The  shortest  days  are  soon  coming,  and  I  am  glad  of  it At 

home  I  used  to  delight  in  the  silence  and  darkness  of  the  morning, 
and  a  long,  uninterrupted  winter's  evening  had  pleasures  that  were  all 
its  own  ;  but  here,  where  the  sun  hardly  rises  above  the  damp  and 
sickly  mists  of  the  horizon  through  the  whole  day,  where  candles 
must  be  burnt  till  nine  in  the  morning  and  lighted  again  at  three,  — 
here  the  darkness  becomes  a  burden  of  which  I  shall  rejoice  to  be 
rid.  It  no  longer  seems  to  me  like  that  '  grateful  vicissitude  of  day 
and  night'  that  Milton  says  'flows  from  the  very  throne  of  God/ 
but  like  the  Cimmerian  darkness  in  which  Homer  has  involved  the 
gloomy  regions  of  death  and  despair.  I  would  not  write  thus  to  you, 
my  dear  father,  if  I  did  not  know  that,  when  you  receive  this  letter, 
you  will  be  able  to  console  yourself  with  the  recollection  that  I  have 
already  emerged  to  the  light  of  day.  The  climate  and  weather  are 
much  like  our  own  in  fickleness,  though  more  damp  and  rainy. 
....  But  I  care  nothing  for  this.  My  health  is  perfect  and  con 
stant  ;  and,  as  for  '  the  seasons  and  their  changes,  all  please  alike.' " 

*  Tliis  feeling  occasionally  finds  expression  in  his  letters.  Writing  to  his 
father,  November  10,  1815,  and  speaking  of  his  Greek  tutor,  Dr.  Schultze,  he 
says  :  "  Every  day  I  am  filled  with  new  astonishment  at  the  variety  and  accuracy, 
the  minuteness  and  readiness,  of  his  learning.  Every  day  I  feel  anew,  under  the 
oppressive  weight  of  his  admirable  acquirements,  what  a  mortifying  distance 
there  is  between  a  European  and  an  American  scholar  !  We  do  not  yet  know 
what  a  Greek  scholar  is  ;  we  do  not  even  know  the  process  by  which  a  man  is  to 
be  made  one.  I  am  sure,  if  there  is  any  faith  to  be  given  to  the  signs  of  the 
times,  two  or  three  generations  at  least  must  pass  away  before  we  make  the 
discovery  and  siicceed  in  the  experiment.  Dr.  Schultze  is  hardly  older  thaa 

I  am It  never  entered  into  my  imagination  to  conceive  that  any 

expense  of  time  or  talent  could  make  a  man  so  accomplished  in  this  forgotten 
language  as  he  is." 

VOL.  I.  4 


74  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1815. 

Mr.  Ticknor  always  was  an  easy  and  ready  writer,  and  the 
exercise  of  writing  was  never  distasteful  to  him.     His  letters  and 
journals,  during  his  residence  in  Europe,  were  so  copious  that 
they  alone,  had  he  done  nothing  else,  would  have  saved  him 
from  the  reproach  of  idleness.    They  contain  so  full  and  continu 
ous  a  record  of  his  life  and  thoughts,  that  little  is  left  for  his 
biographer  to  relate.     They  should  be  read,  however,  not  merely 
as  fresh  and  animated  sketches  of  what  he  witnessed  and  felt, 
but  as  unconscious  revelations  of  character,  addressed,  as  they 
were,  to  his  father  and  mother,  with  that  frank  and  affectionate 
confidence  which  had  always   existed   between   them.      They 
reveal  to  us  a  rare  degree  of  self-denial  and  force  of  character 
in  a  young  man  of  four-and-twenty,  suddenly  exchanging  the 
loving  and  watchful  supervision  of  a  New  England  home  for  the 
absolute  freedom  of  Europe,  but  yielding  to  none  of  the  tempta 
tions  of  his  new  position ;  devoting  himself  to  an  unbroken  life 
of  hard  study,  making  his  plans  deliberately  and  adhering  to 
them  resolutely,  and  renouncing  not  merely  all  debasing  but  all 
frivolous  pleasures.     And  from  these  letters  and  journals  we  also 
learn  that  his  love  of  study  was  not  the  effect  of   a  solitary 
temper  or  an  ascetic  spirit,  but  that  he  was  fond  of  society  as 
well  as  of  books,  that  he  was  a  social  favorite,  everywhere  well 
received,  and  treated  with  marked  kindness  by  many  of  the 
most  distinguished  men  in  Europe. 

To  MR.  ELISHA  TICKNOK,  BOSTON. 

GOTTINGEN,    August  10,  1815. 

Well,  my  dear  father,  here  I  am  regularly  settled  in  my  own  lodg 
ings,  and  regularly  matriculated  as  a  member  of  the  "  University  of 
Gottingen"  ;  and  the  first  and  pleasantest  use  I  can  make  of  my  new 
apartments  and  privileges  is  to  sit  down  and  give  you  an  account  of 
them 

The  town  itself,  as  you  know,  is  now  within  the  dominions  of 
Hanover,  and  was  formerly  just  comprehended  within  that  of  West 
phalia.  It  is  an  old  town,  and  all  the  houses  I  have  observed  are 
old,  though  evidently  comfortable  and  neat,  and  quite  filled  with  ten 
ants  from  all  quarters  of  the  world.  The  whole  town  was  originally 
surrounded  with  pretty  strong  walls  ;  but  they  are  now  in  ruins,  and 


M.  24]  GOTTINGEN.  70 

serve  only  as  the  foundation  of  a  public  walk,  shaded  with  tine  trees, 
which  extends  round  the  city.  The  number  of  inhabitants  is  about 
ten  thousand,  and,  as  far  as  I  have  come  in  contact  with  them  during 
the  last  three  days,  I  have  found  them  as  all  the  Germans  are  re 
puted  to  be,  —  kind,  courteous,  and  not  only  willing,  but  "anxious,  to 
assist  the  strangers  who  come  among  them.  One  circumstance,  I  be 
lieve,  must  strike  everybody  who  establishes  himself  at  Gottingen  : 
it  is  a  place  which  subsists  so  entirely  upon  literature,  the  town 
and  the  University  have  been  by  the  policy  of  the  government  so 
completely  adapted  to  the  wants  of  foreigners,  and  the  manners  and 
habits  of  the  citizens  and  faculty  so  entirely  accommodated  to  this 
fluctuating  population,  that  the  moment  a  student  comes  here,  his 
situation  is  so  well  understood  that  every  request  and  wish  is  antici 
pated.  Wherever  you  go,  it  seems  to  be  the  express  business  of  the 
persons  you  meet,  —  whether  they  be  professors,  faculty,  or  citizens, 
—  to  see  that  you  are  in  lodgings,  that  you  know  the  persons  whom 
you  ought  to  choose  for  instructors,  and  that  you  are  properly  fur 
nished  with  everything  you  want.  In  consequence  of  this,  a  student 
can  hardly  feel  himself  to  be  a  stranger  here,  after  the  first  day  or 
two. 

The  University,  as  you  know,  was  founded  by  George  II.,  and 
was  always  under  the  especial  patronage  of  the,  British  throne,  until 
Hanover  was  seized  by  the  French.  Ever  since  then  it  has  shared 
a  better  fate  than  the  other  literary  establishments  of  the  Continent. 
Bonaparte,  indeed,  once  sent  Denon,  the  Egyptian  traveller,  and  an 
other  savant,  to  look  among  the  treasures  of  its  Library,  but  they 
carried  nothing  away.  While  Halle,  Leipsic,  and  Jena  were  suffering 
under  his  brutal  depredations  on  their  funds  and  among  their  books, 
he  declared  that  he  considered  Gottingen  as  an  establishment  which 
belonged  neither  to  Hanover  nor  to  Germany,  but  to  Europe  and 
the  world  ;  and  he  was  not  only  true  to  the  promise  he  made  to  the 
faculty  here,  to  protect  them,  but,  under  the  government  of  Jerome, 
they  were  liberally  assisted  by  the  influence  and  even  the  wealth  of 
the  throne.  In  consequence  of  this,  Gottingen,  instead  of  coming 
from  the  hands  of  the  French  nearly  abolished,  like  the  universities 
of  Holland,  or  mutilated  and  abridged  in  its  funds  and  privileges,  like 
those  of  Saxony,  now  stands  higher  than  it  ever  stood  before,  and  at 
this  moment  —  when  an  immense  proportion  of  the  young  men  of  the 
country  are  in  the  ranks  of  the  army,  from  choice  or  compulsion,  and 
all  the  other  literary  establishments,  even  those  at  Halle,  Leipsic,  and 
Berlin,  are  languishing  for  want  of  pupils  —  reckons  oil  its  books. 


76  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1815. 

above  eight  hundred  and  forty  regular  pupils.  The  number  of  pro 
fessors  is  proportionally  great.  There  are  nearly  forty,  appointed  and 
paid  by  the  government,  and  there  are,  besides,  as  many  more  men  of 
science  and  letters,  who  live  here  for  the  purpose  of  lecturing  and  in 
struction  ;"so  that  at  least  seventy  or  eighty  different  courses  of  lec 
tures,  all  in  the  German  language,  are  going  on  at  the  same  time. 

Two  courses  of  lectures,  or  two  semestres,  as  they  are  called,  are 
given  by  each  professor,  or  lecturer,  in  each  year,  with  a  vacation  of 
three  weeks  at  the  end  of  every  semestre.  One  semestre  begins  a 
fortnight  after  Easter  (in  April),  and  ends  a  week  before  Michaelmas  ; 
the  other  begins  a  fortnight  after  Michaelmas,  and  ends  a  week  before 
Easter.  Everything  is  done  by  solitary  study  arid  private  instruction 
(privatissime,  as  it  is  called),  or  else  by  public  lectures 

My  first  object,  of  course,  will  be  German.  This  will  be  taught  me 
by  Prof.  Benecke,  the  Professor  of  English  Literature,  who  speaks  Eng 
lish  quite  well Besides  him,  however,  I  intend  to  procure  some 

scholar  who  will  come  to  my  chambers  and  read  and  speak  with  me. 
In  this  way,  by  October  I  think  I  shall  be  able  to  attend  the  lectures 
profitably,  and  then  I  shall  probably  resort  to  those  of  Eichhorn  on 
literary  history,  and  to  those  of  some  other  professors  on  Greek, 
Roman,  and  German  literatures.  If  I  find  this  mode  of  instruction 
profitable,  and  nothing  calls  me  sooner  to  France,  I  shall  remain  here 
until  next  April.  . 

You  now  know,  my  dear  father,  all  that  I  know  myself  about  Got- 

tingen  and  my  prospect  in  it There  is  no  such  thing  as  a  royal 

road  to  learning ;  but  in  the  means,  opportunities,  and  excitements 
offered  here,  there  is  a  considerable  approximation  to  it.  Nothing 
now  remains  but  to  see  how  I  shall  improve  my  advantages 

JOURNAL. 

GOTTINGEN,  August  22.  —  Michaelis,  I  find,  was  not  much  respected 
here.  He  had  a  quarrelsome  and  fretful  temper,  a  mean  and  avari 
cious  heart.  A  great  many  stories  are  told  to  his  discredit,  and  to 
the  credit  of  the  wit  and  good  feeling  of  Kastner,  who  was  at  the 
same  time  Professor  of  Mathematics,  and  was  always  a  thorn  in  Mi- 
chaelis's  side.  A  scholar  here,  whose  poverty  had  not  extinguished 
his  love  of  learning,  went  to  Michaelis,  and  told  him  that  he  was 
extremely  desirous  to  hear  his  lectures,  but  had  no  money,  explained 
the  reasons  of  it,  and  begged  him  to  admit  him  without  the  customary 
honorarium.  Michaelis  hesitated,  said  he  had  a  family  to  support, 


M.  24.]  KASTNER.  77 

etc.;  but,  observing  that  the  young  man  wore  silver  buckles  in  his 
shoes,  told  him  that  he  did  not  think  one  in  his  circumstances  should 
wear  such  ornaments,  and  actually  had  the  brutality  to  hint  that  he 
would  receive  them  instead  of  his  fee.  The  young  man  gave  them  to 
him,  and  with  a  heavy  heart,  and  unstrapped  shoes,  went  to  Kastner  on 
the  same  errand.  Kastner  forgave  him  the  fee,  and  said,  "  If  you  are 
so  poor,  you  must  like  to  buy  clothes  cheap  "  ;  and  going  to  his  ward 
robe  brought  out  a  pair  of  old  leather  breeches.  "  Here,"  said  he, 
"are  a  pair  of  breeches,  — very  good,  too,  though  you  don't  seem  to 
like  them,  —  which  you  shall  have  for  half  nothing.  What  will  you 
give  ? "  The  young  man  was  confounded,  —  tried  to  excuse  himself,  — 
said  he  did  not  want  clothes,  etc.,  but  in  vain.  The  professor  in 
sisted,  said  they  were  as  good  as  new,  though  they  were  really  not 
fit  to  be  seen,  and  ended  by  saying  he  should  have  them  for  half  a 
dollar.  The  poor  fellow  took  them,  gave  to  Kastner  all  the  money 
he  had,  and  went  away  more  overwhelmed  with  this  insult  than  with 
the  first.  He  sat  down  in  his  chair  in  despair,  and  threw  the  wretched 
breeches  on  the  table.  They  fell  like  something  heavy,  and,  on  exam 
ining,  he  found  a  purse  of  gold  in  the  pocket.  He  hurried  with  it  to 
the  professor.  "  No,"  said  Kastner,  "  a  bargain  is  a  bargain.  When  you 
bought  the  breeches,  you  bought  all  there  was  in  them,"  and  pushed 
him  out  of  the  room  to  avoid  his  thanks  and  gratitude. 

Kastner  lost  no  occasion  to  trouble  and  vex  Michaelis,  and  at  last 
his  persecutions  proceeded  to  open  insult,  and  the  Regency  at  Hanover 
interfered  and  ordered  him  to  beg  Michaelis's  pardon.  On  receiving 
the  intimation,  Kastner,  the  next  morning  at  daybreak,  dressed  him 
self  in  a  full  suit,  with  a  sword  and  chapeau,  and  went  to  the  house 
of  Michaelis.  The  servant  said  her  master  was  not  up  ;  but  Kastner 
insisted  on  his  being  called,  and,  instead  of  waiting  till  he  came  down, 
followed  the  maid  directly  into  his  chamber,  and,  pretending  to  be  sur 
prised  beyond  measure  in  finding  him  in  bed  with  his  wife,  darted 
suddenly  back,  cried  out,  "  I  beg  ten  thousand  pardons,"  turned  on 
his  heel,  and  never  made  the  professor  any  further  satisfaction,  or  in 
any  other  way  fulfilled  the  commands  of  the  Regency. 

Being  rather  weary  after  six  weeks  of  constant  study,  Mr. 
Ticknor  and  Mr.  Everett  made  a  visit  of  five  days  to  Hanover, 
leaving  Gottingen  September  19th,  and  returning  the  24th,  and 
found  much  interest  in  making  the  acquaintance  of  Feder,  — 
for  twenty-nine  years  professor  in  Gottingen,  —  Count  Munster, 
Minister  of  State,  Professor  Martens,  author  of  a  work  on  the 


78  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1815. 

Law  of  Nations,  "  much  read  in  America,"  and  Mad.  Kestner, 
the  original  of  Goethe's  "  Charlotte."  The  following  are  passages 
from  his  journal  in  Hanover  :  — 

HANOVER,  September  20,  1815.  —  This  morning  I  called  on  Count 
Munster,  Minister  of  State  for  Hanover.  I  found  him  a  man  of  about 
forty-five,  well-built,  tall,  and  genteel.  He  speaks  English  like  a 
native,  and  though  his  conversation  was  not  very  acute,  it  was  dis 
cursive  and  pleasant.  I  remained  with  him  only  a  few  moments,  as 
there  were  several  persons  in  waiting  when  I  was  admitted,  whose 
business  was  much  more  important,  I  doubt  not,  than  mine  ;  but  the 
impression  I  brought  away  of  his  character  was  distinct,  —  that  he 
is  a  man  of  benevolence,  considerable  activity,  and,  though  not  of 
extraordinary  talents,  yet  of  such  talents  as  fit  him  to  be  at  the  head 
of  such  a  little  principality  as  this.  I  shall  not  soon  forget  the  praise 
which  Blumenbach  gave  him,  that  he  is  a  minister  who  never  made  a 

promise  which  he  did  not  fulfil The  rest  of  the  morning  I 

passed  in  the  library.  I  found  there  many  curiosities.  Indeed,  the 
library  itself,  considered  as  the  work  of  Leibnitz,  —  which  for  a  long 
time  was  so  small  that  he  kept  it  in  his  house,  but  which  now  amounts 
to  eighty  thousand  volumes,  —  is  no  common  curiosity.  But.  besides 
this,  we  were  shown  the  MSS.  of  the  Bishop  of  Salisbury  (Burnet), 
which  Dr.  Noehden  has  recently  published  ;  his  letters  to  Leibnitz,  and 
indeed  the  whole  of  Leibnitz's  immense  correspondence,  filling  forty 
or  fifty  large  drawers  ;  the  handwriting  of  Luther,  which  was  fine  ; 
that  of  Melancthon,  which  was  execrable  ;  a  curious  and  exquisitely 
beautiful  MS.  of  the  German  translation  of  the  book  of  Esther, 
made  about  a  hundred  years  ago,  on  one  roll  of  parchment  :  but, 
above  all  the  rest,  the  entire  collection  of  Leibnitz  MSS  on  sub 
jects  of  politics,  mathematics,  philosophy,  history,  divinity,  and 
indeed  nearly  every  branch  of  human  knowledge,  in  Latin,  Greek, 
English,  French,  Italian,  and  German,  in  prose  and  poetry,  printed 

and  imprinted.     They  made  an  enormous  mass Yet  no  man 

ever  wrote  with  more  care,  no  man  ever  blotted,  and  altered,  and 
copied  more  than  Leibnitz.  There  are  instances  in  this  collection  in 
which  he  had  written  the  same  letter  three  times  over,  and  finally 
amended  it  so  much  as  to  be  obliged  to  give  it  to  his  secretary 
to  make  the  last  copy  ;  and  all  this,  too,  on  an  occasion  of  little 
importance.  Still  he  found  time  for  everything,  and  was,  I  imagine, 
the  most  general  scholar  of  his  time.  At  any  rate,  in  the  extent 
of  his  acquirements  he  far  surpassed  his  more  fortunate  and  greater 
rival. 


J&  24.]  LIFE  IN   GOTTINGEN.  79 

To  ELISHA  TICKNOR,  ESQ.,  BOSTON. 

GOTTINGEN,  November  5,  1815. 

The  time  has  passed  with  surprising  speed  since  I  have  been  here. 
This  evening  finishes  the  third  month  since  I  drove  into  Gottingen 
with  a  heavy  heart,  doubtful,  from  what  I  had  seen  of  the  towns  on 
the  road,  whether  I  should  be  contented  to  live  here  even  the  five  or 
six  months  I  then  proposed  to  myself.  A  month's  experience  deter 
mined  me  to  remain  till  the  spring,  and  now  I  am  ready  to  tell  you 
that  I  do  not  think  I  shall  ever  again  find  its  equal.  Even  while  I 
was  struggling  with  the  language,  and  of  course  was  cut  off  from  half 
the  means  and  opportunities  the  University  could  afford,  —  even  then 
the  conviction  was  continually  pressing  upon  me  of  the  superiority 
of  their  instructions  and  modes  of  teaching.  Now  I  know  it 

Now  I  am  ready  to  tell  you  just  how  I  shall  divide  and  dispose 
of  my  time  for  five  months  to  come.  In  the  first  place,  I  rise 
precisely  at  five,  and  sit  down  at  once  to  my  Greek  ;  upon  which 
I  labor  three  mornings  in  the  week  till  half  past  seven,  and  three 
days  till  half  past  eight.  On  Mondays,  Wednesdays,  and  Fridays, 
at  the  striking  of  eight  o'clock,  I  am  at  Prof.  Benecke's  for  my  lesson 
in  German.  This  has  become  a  light  study.  I  read  with  him  only 
some  of  the  most  difficult  parts  of  their  poets,  and  carry  to  him  the 
passages  I  do  not  understand  in  books  I  read  for  other  purposes.  He 
is  perfectly  at  home  in  all  their  literary  history,  and  familiar  with  all 
the  secret  allusions  and  hints  in  their  ancient  and  modern  classics, 
and  is  an  uncommonly  good  English  scholar,  so  that  I  find  this  hour's 
instruction  very  pleasant  and  useful. 

At  nine,  every  day,  I  go  to  Prof.  Eichhorn's  lectures  on  the  first  three 
Evangelists.  Though  I  do  not  agree  with  him  in  his  doctrine  respecting 
the  origin  and  formation  of  the  Gospels,  and  am  not  often  satisfied  with 
his  general  reasoning,  yet  this  forms  but  a  small  part  of  his  course  ; 
and  in  return  I  am  delighted  with  his  exposition  of  particular  parts, 
his  luminous  elucidation  of  dark  and  doubtful  passages,  his  acute 
and  curious  learning,  which  he  brings  most  happily  to  the  assistance 
of  the  exegetical  part  of  his  work,  and,  above  all,  with  his  eloquence 
and  enthusiasm,  and  deep  and  genuine  love  of  truth.  At  ten  this 
lecture  breaks  up,  and  I  catch  a  walk  of  fifteen  minutes  as  I  come 
home  ;  and  from  that  time  till  dinner  at  twelve  I  go  on  with  my 
Greek,  and  thus  divide  my  day  pretty  equally,  — at  least  my  day  of 
labor.  After  dinner  I  take  a  nap  of  half  an  hour,  which  refreshes 
me  very  much,  and  then  half  a  cup  of  coffee,  which  wakes  me  up  and 
gives  me  spirit  for  the  afternoon. 


80  LIFE  OF   GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1815. 

At  half  past  one  I  read  the  passages  in  Blumenbach's  Manual 
which  he  will  expound  in  his  lecture,  and  at  three  go  to  his  lecture 
on  natural  history,  which  would  be  amusement  enough  for  me,  if  I 
had  no  other  the  whole  day.  He  is  now  nearly  or  quite  seventy 
years  old,  has  been  professor  here  above  forty  years,  and  is  now 
delivering,  to  an  overflowing  class,  his  eightieth  course  of  lectures  on 
natural  history.  He  is  the  first  naturalist  in  Germany,  —  perhaps  in 
the  world,  —  has  an  astonishingly  wide  and  intimate  familiarity  with 
his  subject,  and  a  happy  humor  in  communicating  his  instruction, 
which  makes  doubly  amusing  what  is,  itself,  the  most  interesting  of 
all  studies.  His  jokes,  however,  are  never  frivolous  ;  they  are  always 
connected  with  some  important  fact  or  doctrine  which  they  are  in 
tended  to  impress  ;  and  when  we  come  out  of  his  lecture-room,  after 
having  laughed  half  the  time  we  were  there,  we  are  sure  to  have 
learnt  twice  as  much,  and  to  remember  it  twice  as  well,  as  if  we  had 
never  laughed  at  all.  After  this  I  take  a  walk,  and  at  five  go  to  Dr. 
Schultze,  a  young  man,  but  at  least  to  me  an  extraordinary  Greek 
scholar,  and  held  to  be  decidedly  the  best  Greek  instructor  in  Gottin- 

gen,  and  recite  to  him  in  Greek He  is  as  completely  at  home 

in  Greek  as  if  it  were  a  modern  language  which  he  had  learnt  in  the 
ordinary  way ;  and  before  the  spring  comes,  I  trust  I  shall  have  learnt 
something  from  him  which  I  shall  not  forget. 

Finding  it  impossible,  from  the  continual  rains  and  intolerable  mud 
of  the  streets,  to  get  exercise  enough,  Everett  and  myself  have  fallen 
into  the  universal  fashion,  and  go  an  hour  to  the  University  fencing- 
master  three  times  a  week,  from  six  to  seven.  We  find  it  useful  and 
pleasant  too  ;  for,  except  at  Blumenbach's  lectures,  where  we  cannot 
talk,  we  seldom  meet  in  the  week,  except  at  these  fencing  hours. 
The  evenings  I  pass  in  reading  German,  principally  such  books  as 
will  profit  me  in  Italy  and  Greece.  Just  before  ten  I  go  to  bed,  and 
"  sleep  the  sleep  that  knows  no  waking  "  till  my  punctual  Frederick 
comes  in,  and  says,  "  It  is  striking  five,  sir,  and  your  breakfast  is  ready." 

You  will  ask  whether  my  acquaintance  and  visitors  do  not  some 
times  interrupt  me.  Visiting,  as  it  is  done  in  our  colleges,  is  a  thing 
absolutely  unknown  here.  If  a  man,  who  means  to  have  any  reputa 
tion  as  a  scholar,  sees  his  best  friend  once  a  week,  it  is  thought  quite 
often  enough.  As  for  acquaintance,  except  an  English  student  in 
divinity,  whom  I  see  at  my  two  lectures  and  the  fencing  master's, 
a  German  student,  whom  I  do  not  visit,  but  who  comes  to  see  me 
about  once  a  fortnight,  and  a  modern  Greek,  whom  I  see  about  once 
a  month,  I  have  no  acquaintance.  Our  Sunday  evenings  Everett  and  I 
commonly  spend  either  at  Blumenbach's,  Heeren's,  or  Eichhorn's. 


^E.  24.]  DR.   SCHULTZE.  81 

To  ELISHA  TICKNOE,  ESQ.,  BOSTON. 

GOTTINGEN,  November  10,  1815. 

....  I  wrote  you,  in  my  last,  less  decisively  about  my  Greek  instruc 
tor  than  about  the  rest This  week,  however,  has  satisfied  me  that 

he  will  soon  become  my  favorite  instructor,  as  his  subject  has  always 
been  my  favorite  branch.  I  learn  the  language  entirely  through  the 
German.  My  lexicon,  grammar,  etc.,  are  German,  and  from  this 
language  I  mean  hereafter  to  acquire  my  Greek,  since  the  means  in  it 
axe  vastly  better  than  our  language  will  afford,  or  even  the  Latin. 
At  first  we  had  some  difficulty  in  fixing  upon  a  common  medium  of 
translating.  1  did  not  like  to  render  it  into  broken  German,  and  I 
would  not  disgrace  the  language  of  Pericles  and  Demosthenes  by 
rendering  it  into  French.  Latin,  of  course,  was  all  that  remained  ; 
and,  after  discarding  my  Latin  and  Greek  lexicons,  and  renouncing  for 
ever  the  miserable  assistance  of  Latin  versions,  I  undertook  to  render 
into  it,  with  some  misgivings.  I  had  never  done  it,  I  had  never 
spoken  a  word  of  Latin  ;  but  the  moment  I  began,  the  difficulty  van 
ished.  I  found  that  I  could  translate  thus  nearly  as  fast  as  into  my 
mother  tongue  ;  in  short,  I  found  that  I  knew  a  great  deal  more 
Latin  than  I  suspected,  I  shall  hereafter  use  it  upon  all  emergencies 
without  hesitation. 

My  instructor,  Dr.  Schultze,*  is  one  of  the  private  lecturers  here, 
and  is  considered  very  skilful  in  teaching  ;  how  he  is,  comparatively 
with  others  here,  I  cannot  tell  from  my  own  experience,  but  I  know 
that  he  is  such  a  scholar  as  we  have  no  idea  of  in  America.  To  be 
sure,  he  looks  as  if  he  had  fasted  six  months  on  Greek  prosody  and 
the  Pindaric  metres,  but  I  am  by  no  means  certain  that  he  has  not 
his  reward  for  his  sacrifices. 

To  E.  TICKNOR. 

GOTTINGEN,  November  18,  1815. 

....  If  I  desired  to  teach  anybody  the  value  of  timer  I  would  send 
him  to  spend  a  semestre  at  Gottingen.  Until  I  began  to  attend  the 

*  Schultze  was  a  man  of  genius,  and  a  poet  as  well  as  a  scholar.  He  wrote 
"Psyche,"  "Cecilia,"  "The  Enchanted  Rose,"  (which  last  has  been  translated 
into  English,)  and  many  miscellaneous  poems.  He  was  but  two  years  older  than 
Mr.  Ticknor,  having  been  born  in  1789.  He  died  in  1817.  After  his  death,  his 
works  were  collected  and  published  by  his  friend  Bouterweck,  with  a  short 
sketch  of  his  life.  A  new  edition  appeared  in  Leipsic  in  1855,  in  four  volumes, 
with  a  more  full  biography.  An  account  of  his  life  and  works  may  be  found  in 
the  third  volume  of  Taylor's  "  Historic  Survey  of  German  Poetry." 


82  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1815. 

lectures,  and  go  frequently  into  the  streets,  I  had  no  idea  of  the  accu 
racy  with  which  it  is  measured  and  sold  by  the  professors.  Every  clock 
that  strikes  is  the  signal  for  four  or  five  lectures  to  begin  and  four  or 
five  others  to  close.  In  the  intervals  you  may  go  into  the  streets  and 
find  they  are  silent  and  empty  ;  but  the  bell  has  hardly  told  the  hour 
before  they  are  filled  with  students,  with  their  portfolios  under  their 
arms,  hastening  from  the  feet  of  one  Gamaliel  to  those  of  another,  — 
generally  running  in  order  to  save  time,  and  often  without  a  hat, 
which  is  always  in  the  way  in  the  lecture-room.  As  soon  as  they 
reach  the  room,  they  take  their  places  and  prepare  their  pens  and 
paper.  The  professor  comes  in  almost  immediately,  and  from  that 
time  till  he  goes  out,  the  sound  of  his  disciples  taking  notes  does  not 
for  an  instant  cease.  The  diligence  and  success  with  which  they  do 
this  are  very  remarkable.  One  who  is  accustomed  to  the  exercise, 
and  skilful  in  it,  will  not  only  take  down  every  idea  of  the  professor, 
but  nearly  every  word ;  and,  in  this  land  of  poverty,  lectures  are  thus 
made  to  serve  as  a  kind  of  Lancastrian  education  in  the  high  branches 
of  letters  and  science. 

About  two  minutes  before  the  hour  is  completed,  the  students  begin 
to  be  uneasy  for  fear  they  shall  lose  the  commencement  of  the  next 
lecture  they  are  to  attend  ;  and  if  the  professor  still  goes  on  to  the 
very  limit  of  his  time,  they  make  a  noise  of  some  kind  to  intimate 
that  he  is  intruding  on  his  successor,  and  the  hint  is  seldom  unsuccess 
ful.  Eichhorn,  who  has  a  great  deal  of  enthusiasm  when  he  finds  him 
self  in  the  midst  of  an  interesting  topic,  sometimes  asks,  with  irresistible 
good-nature,  for  "  another  moment,  —  only  a  moment,"  and  is  never 
refused,  though  if  he  trespasses  much  beyond  his  time,  a  loud  scraping 
compels  him  to  conclude,  which  he  commonly  does  with  a  joke.  The 
lecture-room  is  then  emptied,  the  streets  again  filled,  to  repeat  the 
same  process  in  other  halls. 

Just  so  it  is  in  the  private  instruction  I  receive.  At  eight  o'clock 
I  go  to  Benecke,  and  though  in  three  months  and  a  half  I  have  never 
missed  a  lesson  or  been  five  minutes  tardy,  I  have  seldom  failed  to 
find  him  waiting  for  me.  At  the  striking  of  nine,  I  must  make  all 
haste  away,  for  the  next  hour  is  as  strictly  given  to  somebody  else. 
At  five  P.  M.,  I  go  to  Schultze  for  my  Greek  lesson.  As  I  go  up 
stairs  he  can  hear  me,  and,  five  times  out  of  six,  I  find  him  looking 
out  the  place  where  I  am  to  recite.  The  clock  strikes  six,  and  he  shuts 
up  the  book.  From  the  accuracy  with  which  time  is  measured,  what 
in  all  other  languages  is  called  a  lesson  is  called  in  German  "  an  hour." 
You  are  never  asked  if  you  take  lessons  of  such  a  person,  but  whether 
yotl  take  "  hours  "  of  him 


M.  24.]  POLITICAL  FEELING  IN  G5TTINGEN.  83 

To  E.  T.  CHANNING. 

GOTTINGEN,  December  9,  1815. 

....  Your  apprehensions  for  the  quiet  of  Gottingen,  in  case  Bona 
parte  had  succeeded,  were  very  natural.  Amidst  all  the  fluctuations 
of  empire,  this  little  spot  has  stood  as  the  centre  of  German  learning, 
unconscious  of  convulsions  ;  and  though  all  calculation  and  precedent 
would  have  been  confounded  if  this  new  Marius,  rushing  from  the 
marshes  of  Minturnse,  had  attained  his  former  power,  yet  I  think, 
unless  the  students  had  been  as  patriotic  as  they  were  at  Jena,  every 
thing  would  have  continued  to  go  on  in  its  accustomed  order.  They 
did,  indeed,  discover  a  strong  and  honorable  and  even  imprudent 
feeling,  on  Bonaparte's  retreat  from  Moscow,  and  Jerome  was  for 
the  moment  very  angry  ;  but  I  think  he  would  soon  have  forgotten 
his  vengeance.  Even  before  the  spirit  had  begun  to  awake  in  Poland 
and  Prussia,  the  young  men  here  felt  its  deep  and  dangerous  work 
ings.  Secret  clubs,  which  even  the  vigilance  of  the  police  could  not 
discover,  though  it  suspected  them,  were  cautiously  but  resolutely 
formed,  and  the  whole  cemented  into  a  body  by  an  institution  which 
they  called  "  the  League  of  Patriotism." 

Bonaparte's  routed  army  crossed  the  Beresina,  and  the  Prussians 
(students)  disappeared;  it  entered  the  borders  of  Germany,  and  the 
Mecklenburgers  were  gone  ;  and  in  this  way,  as  he  advanced  towards 
any  country  or  principality,  the  young  men  escaped,  to  share  and  en 
courage  the  spirit  which  finally  crushed  him.  The  dangers  they  ran 
were  very  great.  The  French  government  and  police  were  still  in  full 
activity  here,  and  more  vigilant  than  ever,  because  more  than  ever 
stimulated  by  fear  and  suspicion.  The  young  men,  therefore,  were 
obliged  to  escape  in  secret  and  in  disguise,  and  make  their  way 
through  unfrequented  roads,  through  the  woods,  and  in  the  night, 

with  the  constant  apprehension  of  arrest  and  death  before  them 

The  benches  in  the  lecture-rooms  began  to  be  obviously  empty,  and 
the  streets  grew  still  and  deserted. 

The  retreating  army  was  now  about  a  hundred  and  fifty  miles  from 
the  "Westphalian  capital,  and  Jerome  began  to  think  that,  for  a  time, 
he  might  be  himself  exiled,  and  thought  it  necessary  to  make  some 
show  of  personal  spirit.  He  therefore  came  with  a  suitable  guard  to 
Gottingen,  and  called  the  professors  together  in  the  library  hall. 

He  was  extremely  impudent  and  abusive,  but  had  not  self-command 
enough  to  know  when  he  had  come  to  the  end  of  a  set  speech  some 
body  had  written  for  him,  and  so  began  again  at  the  beginning,  and 


84  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1815. 

repeated  it  word  for  word.  The  professors  concealed  first  their  indig 
nation  and  then  their  mirth  and  contempt,  as  well  as  they  could,  but 
still  both  were  visible,  and  the  little  tyrant  was  put  beside  himself  by 
it.  "  Do  not  think,"  said  he,  "  that  I  am  ignorant  of  the  disaffection  in 
Gottingen,  or  that  it  will  escape  unpunished.  You  flatter  yourselves 
that  I  shall  lose  my  throne,  but  you  are  mistaken.  As  long  as  my 
brother  sits  on  the  throne  of  France,  so  long  I  shall  be  your  king,  and 
I  will  use  my  power  to  punish  your  ingratitude.  The  University 
shall  be  remodelled,  —  it  shall  be  a  French  University.  I  will  have 
French  professors,  —  men  of  virtue  and  patriotism,"  etc.,  etc. 

After  a  considerable  tirade  like  this,  his  Majesty  returned  to  Cassel, 
and  Eichhorn,  in  the  next  number  of  the  University's  Review,  —  which 
he  conducts,  —  gave  a  side-blow  at  "  the  never-to-be-forgotten  speech 
of  his  Most  Gracious,"  etc.,  for  which,  but  that  the  Cossacks  stopped 
all  heart-burnings  a  week  later,  he  might  have  lost  his  head. 

This  is  the  only  time  the  privileges  of  the  University  have  been  in 
danger,  and  Jerome  was  such  a  weak  and  uncertain  little  blockhead 
that  he  would  probably  never  have  had  resolution  and  constancy 
enough  to  execute  his  threat.  Since  I  have  been  here,  everything  has 
been  as  still  as  if  it  were  one  vast  monastery,  except  that  about  five 
thousand  of  the  Russian  Guards  marched  through  the  city,  three 
weeks  ago,  and  made  a  beautiful  show,  and  gave  me  a  splendid  proof 
of  the  fidelity  of  Burger's  description  of  the  march  of  an  army  in 
"  Lenore,"  with  horns  and  cymbals,  etc. 

The  life  here  would  in  many  respects  suit  you  remarkably  well. 
There  is  a  regularity,  evenness,  and  calmness,  which  are  fitted  to  one 
who  was  almost  made  to  be  a  hermit,  and,  at  the  same  time,  a  freedom 
which  is  absolutely  necessary  to  one  who  never  was  and  never  will  be 
quite  patient  under  family  government.  All  that  is  wanting  is  a  few 
friends  and  a  little  more  variety  .....  Remember  me  to  your  brother 
William,  and  to  my  old  master,  and  don't  let  your  sister  Susan's 
children  forget  me. 

Yours  affectionately, 

GEO.  T. 

To  E.  TICKNOR. 


December  17,  1815. 

.....  No  change  has  taken  place  in  my  condition  or  circumstances, 
dear  father,  since  I  wrote  last.  The  only  thing  which  has  happened, 
which  does  not  happen  every  day,  is,  that  Everett  and  myself  have 
been  taken  into  the  only  club  in  Gottingen,  and,  of  course,  you  will 


M.  24.]  THE  LITERARY  CLUB.  85 

expect  some  account  of  it.  Its  name  is  "  The  Literary  Club,"  and, 
like  all  literary  clubs  that  ever  survived  the  frosts  of  the  first  winter, 
its  chief  occupation  is  to  eat  suppers.  There  are  twenty-four  mem 
bers,  eight  or  ten  of  whom  are  professors  ;  and  the  students  who  make 
up  the  number  are  only  such  as  these  professors  choose,  and,  of  course, 
are  commonly  the  best  of  the  University.  As  many  of  these  members 
as  like  —  for  there  is  no  compulsion  —  meet  once  a  fortnight  at  eight 
o'clock,  eat  a  moderate  supper,  drink  a  little  wine,  laugh  and  talk 
two  or  three  hours,  and  then  go  home.  We  were  taken  in  as  a  kind 
of  raree-show,  I  suppose,  and  we  are  considered,  I  doubt  not,  with 
much  the  same  curiosity  that  a  tame  monkey  or  a  dancing  bear  would 
be.  We  come  from  such  an  immense  distance,  that  it  is  supposed  we 
can  hardly  be  civilized ;  and  it  is,  I  am  told,  a  matter  of  astonishment 
to  many  that  we  are  white,  though  I  think  in  this  point  they  might 
consider  me  rather  a  fulfilment  than  a  contradiction  of  their  ignorant 
expectations.  However,  whatever  may  be  the  motives  from  which  we 
were  taken  in,  there  we  are,  and  we  have  as  good  a  right  to  be  there 
as  the  best  of  them.  The  only  time  I  have  been  I  found  it  pleasant 
enough,  but  I  doubt  whether  I  shall  go  often. 

DICTATED  IN  1859. 

A  Mr.  Balhorn  dedicated  to  Mr.  John  Pickering  the  thesis  which 
he  wrote  for  his  doctorate,  and,  when  I  went  to  Germany,  Mr.  Pick 
ering  asked  me,  if  I  ever  met  Mr.  Balhorn,  to  say  that  he  had  written 
twice  to  thank  him  for  the  compliment,  but  did  not  believe  his  letters 
had  ever  reached  him,  and  that  he  begged  him  to  receive  his  thanks 
through  me.  Their  acquaintance  was  formed  at  Utrecht,  where  Bal 
horn  was  studying,  and  when  Mr.  Pickering  was  Secretary  of  Lega 
tion  in  Holland.  I  had  been  some  time  in  Gottingen,  and  had  neither 
heard  nor  thought  anything  of  the  Herr  Balhorn ;  but  one  day,  remem 
bering  my  commission,  asked  Prof.  Blumenbach  if  he  knew  such 
a  person,  "  Why,  to  be  sure  ;  he 's  here,  he 's  here  " ;  and  I  found 
that  he  was  tutor  to  some  small  prince,  and  probably  when  he  had 
educated  him  he  would  be  his  Prime  Minister.  I  made  his  acquaint 
ance  and  delivered  my  message. 

Before  I  left  home  I  had  made  several  attempts  to  read  Dante,  and 
found  it  not  only  difficult  to  get  a  copy,  but  impossible  to  get  help  in 
reading.  Balhorn  knew  everything  about  Dante.  He  was  not  fully 
occupied,  but  he  could  not  be  hired,  —  he  was  too  well  off  to  be  paid 
in  money.  A  brother  of  my  friend  Mr.  James  Savage  had  sent  me 
from  Hamburg  a  box  of  very  fine  Havana  cigars,  and  I  found  that 


86  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1815. 

Herr  Balhorn  would  read  and  explain  Dante  to  me,  and  consider  some 
of  those  fine  cigars  —  so  rare  in  Germany  —  a  full  compensation  ;  and 
he  continued  the  reading,  certainly  as  long  as  the  cigars  lasted.  Mr. 
B.  was  a  lawyer,  —  an  upright,  strong  man,  —  and  he  was  virtually 
promised,  that,  if  he  would  superintend  the  education  of  the  young 
princes  of  Lippe,  he  should  have  the  place  of  Chancellor  of  their 
little  principality  when  it  was  completed  ;  and  I  suppose  the  promise 
was  fulfilled. 

A  memorandum  made  in  1868,  by  Mr.  Tick  nor,  on  the  fly 
leaf  of  the  first  volume  of  his  early  journal,  contains  some  facts 
about  his  Gbttingen  studies,  and  though  it  refers  also  to  later 
experiences,  it  seems  appropriate  here. 

It  is  only  that  part  of  my  time  which  I  gave  to  travelling,  society, 
and  amusements,  of  which  I  have  spoken  at  any  length  in  this  jour 
nal,  written  out  wherever  I  stopped  long  enough  to  do  it,  from  slight 
memoranda  made  on  the  spot,  in  small  note-books  which  I  carried  with 
me.  I,  however,  prepared  myself  as  well  as  I  could,  by  collecting  be 
forehand,  in  other  manuscript  note-books,  statistical,  historical,  and 
geographical  facts  concerning  the  countries  I  intended  to  visit.  This 
was  no  very  easy  task.  Murray's  Hand-Book,  or  anything  of  the  sort 
worth  naming,  was  not  known  in  1815.  There  was  not  even  a  good 
Gazetteer  to  help  the  traveller,  for  I  think  the  first  was  Constable's, 
published  at  Edinburgh,  a  little  later;  and  as  for  such  works  as 
Keichard's  for  Germany,  and  Mrs.  Starke's  for  Italy,  —  which  were 
the  best  to  be  had,  —  I  found  them  of  little  value 

I  read  what  I  could  best  find  upon  Italy,  and  took  private  lectures 
on  the  Modern  Fine  Arts,  delivered  in  Italian  by  Professor  Fiorello, 
author  of  the  "  History  of  Painting "  ;  on  the  Ancient  Fine  Arts,  by 
Professor  Welcker,  in  German,  afterwards  the  first  archaeologist  of  his 
time  ;  on  Statistics,  in  French,  by  Professor  Saalfeld,  and  in  German, 
on  the  Spirit  of  the  Times  ;  of  all  of  which  I  still  have  at  least  six 
volumes  of  notes,  besides  two  miscellaneous  volumes  on  Rome,  and 

other  separate  cities  and  towns  of  Italy But  in  Spain  and 

Portugal  I  was  reduced  very  low,  travelling  much  on  horseback, 
though  with  a  postilion,  who  took  a  good  deal  of  luggage  ;  but  I  like 
to  remember  that  even  in  those  countries  I  carried  a  few  books,  and 
that  I  never  separated  myself  from  Shakespeare,  Milton,  Dante,  and 
the  Greek  Testament,  which  I  have  still  in  the  same  copies  I  then 
used. 


M.  24.]  GERMAN  LITERATURE.  87 


CHAPTEE    V. 

Residence  in  Gottingen  till  the  close  0/1816.  —  German  Literature.  —  Ger 
man  Metaphysics.  —  Anecdotes  of  Blumenbach  and  Wolf.  —  Leipsic.  — 
Dresden.  —  Berlin.  —  Weimar.  —  Visit  to  Goethe.  —  Receives  the  offer 
of  the  Professorship  of  French  and  Spanish  Literature  at  Harvard. 

To  C.  S.  DAVEIS,  PORTLAND. 

GOTTINGEN,  February  29,  1816. 

....  You  will  perhaps  expect  from  me  some  notices  of  German 
literature,  as  I  am  now  established  in  the  very  midst  of  it ;  and  if 
you  do  not,  I  may  as  well  write  you  about  it  as  about  something  not 

half  so  interesting To  come  to  the  subject,  then,  and  begin  in 

defiance  of  Horace,  —  ab  ovo  Ledce,  —  you  know  there  are  in  this  land 
of  gutturals  and  tobacco  two  dialects  :  high  German,  so  called  be 
cause  it  is  indigenous  in  the  interior  and  higher  parts  of  the  country  ; 
and  low  German,  so  called  because  it  is  indigenous  in  the  North, 
among  the  lowlands,  and  on  the  coast.  How  long  these  dialects 
have  existed,  it  is  not  now  possible  to  determine  ;  but  they  are  prob 
ably  as  old  as  the  earliest  population  of  the  country,  since  traces  of 
them  have  been  found  in  Tacitus.  The  low  German,  which  is  the 
vernacular  of  the  lowest  class  in  this  part  of  the  country,  is  a  much 
more  harmonious  and  happy  language  in  its  elements  than  the  high 
German,  which  is  the  language  of  all  people  of  any  education  through 
the  whole  country,  but  which  is  a  vernacular  only  at  the  South. 
Both  were  equally  rude,  indigent,  and  unpolished,  until  the  time  of 
the  Reformation,  —  the  epoch  from  which  all  culture  is  dated  in 
Germany. 

This  great  revolution  accidentally  gave  the  empire  of  literature  to 
high  German.  It  happened  to  be  the  native  dialect  of  Luther.  He 
translated  his  Bible  into  it,  wrote  in  it  his  hymns  and  catechisms,  which 
are  still  in  use,  and  made  it  the  language  of  the  pulpit  and  religion, 
and,  of  course,  the  language  of  letters ;  for  in  Germany  they  have  ever 
since  been  inseparably  connected.  The  Thirty  Years'  War,  however, 
which  immediately  followed,  and  wasted  and  degraded  Germany 


88  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1816. 

more,  perhaps,  than  a  country  was  ever  wasted  and  degraded  by  war 
before  or  since,  effectually  stopped  the  progress  of  cultivation,  and 
to  this,  and  to  the  troubles  which  for  above  a  century  afterwards 
continued  to  arise  as  often  as  they  were  appeased,  from  their  division 
into  religious  parties  and  principalities,  is  clearly  to  be  traced  the 
slow  progress  the  Germans  made,  while  the  nations  around  them 
were  fast  advancing  to  the  luxuries  of  a  refined  literature.  At  length, 
when  time  and  collision  had  worn  them  down  to  an  uncomfortable  kind 
of  quietness,  such  as  you  would  naturally  expect  from  their  clumsy 
and  shapeless  constitution,  they  began  to  put  forth  their  awkward 
strength.  Their  circumstances,  however,  did  not  all  favor  them. 
From  local  situation  and  political  interest  they  were  more  connected 
with  France  than  with  any  other  nation  ;  and  the  gay  splendor  of 
literature  at  the  Court  of  Louis  XIV.  at  once  carried  captive 
their  imagination  and  taste.  Nothing  could  be  more  unfortunate 
than  this,  for  nothing  would  less  apply  to  the  rude  and  powerful 
language,  and  the  fiery,  but  untempered  talents  of  Germany,  than  the 
straitlaced  rules  of  French  criticism.  In  this  prison-house,  however, 
the  shorn  and  manacled  strength  of  the  land  toiled  half  a  century 
with  ignominious  skill  and  success  ;  and  the  many  monuments  it  has 
left  behind  are  as  much  the  subject  of  patriotic  abhorrence  and  con 
tempt  at  the  present  day  as  the  more  recent  ones,  which  lately  cov 
ered  th*eir  hills,  to  mark  their  political  servitude  and  degeneracy.  .  .  . 
At  length,  between  1760  and  1770,  from  causes  which  perhaps  it  is 
impossible  accurately  to  trace  and  estimate,  but  the  chief  of  which 
are  certainly  to  be  sought  in  the  humble  servitude  under  which  it  had 
so  long  suffered,  German  literature  underwent  a  sudden  and  violent 
and  total  revolution.  It  is  equally  difficult  to  determine  precisely  to 
whom  is  to  be  given  the  honor  of  leading  the  way  in  this  emancipa 
tion.  If  any  one  author  or  work  must  be  selected,  it  would  probably 
be  the  "  Literary  Letters,"  —  a  periodical  publication  managed  by 
Lessing  ;  but  this  was  so  instantly  succeeded  and  surpassed  by  the 
earliest  works  of  Klopstock,  Wieland,  and  Goethe,  that  it  is  evident 
the  spirit  of  regeneration  had  long  been  working  in  the  land,  and 
that,  if  Lessing  was  the  first  to  call  it  forth,  it  was  rather  from  acci 
dent  than  extraordinary  genius  or  boldness. 

The  literature  of  Germany  now  sprang  at  once  from  its  tardy  soil, 
like  the  miraculous  harvest  of  Jason,  and  like  that,  too,  seems  in 
danger  of  perishing  without  leaving  behind  it  successors  to  its  great 
ness.  Besides  the  four  whom  I  have  named,  I  know  of  no  authors 
who  have  enjoyed  a  general  and  decisive  popularity,  and  who  have 


M.  24.]  GERMAN  LITERATURE.  89 

settled  down  into  regular  classics,  except  Haller,  Miiller,  the  elder 
Voss,  Schiller,  and  Burger.  This  number  is  certainly  small,  and  Goethe 
alone  survives,  to  maintain  the  glory  of  the  deceased  generation  of  his 
friends  and  rivals.  But,  narrow  as  the  circle  is,  and  though  the  strict 
ness  of  posterity  will  perhaps  make  it  yet  narrower,  still  I  know  of  none 
in  the  modern  languages  —  except  our  own  —  where  one  so  interesting 
can  be  found  as  the  circle  of  German  literature.  It  has  all  the  fresh 
ness  and  faithfulness  of  poetry  of  the  early  ages,  when  words  were  still 
the  representatives  of  sensible  objects,  and  simple,  sensible  feelings 
rather  than  of  abstractions  and  generalities  ;  and  yet,  having  flour 
ished  so  late,  it  is  by  no  means  wanting  in  modern  refinement  and 
regularity.  In  this  singular  state,  uniting  much  of  the  force  and 
originality  of  the  barbarous  ages  to  enough  of  the  light  polish  of 
those  that  are  more  civilized,  it  has  continued  just  about  fifty  years  ; 
but  in  the  last  thirty  no  considerable  author  has  appeared.  Much  of 
this  barrenness  is,  I  am  persuaded,  to  be  charged  to  the  philosophy 
of  Kant,  which  for  nearly  twenty  years  ruled  unquestioned,  and 
absorbed  and  perverted  all  the  talents  of  the  land.  It  was  a  vast 
"  Serbonian  bog,  where  armies  whole  have  sunk,"  and  from  which 
even  the  proud  and  original  genius  of  Schiller  hardly  escaped. 
Its  empire,  however,  was  soon  gone  by ;  but  then  followed  the 
French  usurpation,  which  overturned  at  pleasure  the  literary  estab 
lishments  of  the  land,  and  silenced  systematically  all  authors  who 
did  not  write  as  they  were  bidden.  This,  too,  has  gone  by ;  but 
whether  their  literature  will  return  with  their  returning  independence 
and  peace,  is  a  problem  time  only  can  solve. 

To  EDWARD  T.  CHANNING,  BOSTON, 

GOTONGEN,  April  19,  1816. 

....  You  tell  me  you  have  been  amused  with  the  occasional 
hints  I  have  given  you  of  the  life  of  a  student  at  a  German  uni 
versity.  You  shall  then  have  more  of  them,  and  particularly  an 
account  of  some  events  connected  with  this  subject,  which  have 
lately  occurred  here  under  my  immediate  observation. 

There  are,  at  all  the  considerable  literary  establishments  in  Ger 
many,  secret  associations  among  the  students,  consisting  of  all  persons 
from  the  same  country  or  province,  which  are  not  only  connected  with 
all  similar  associations  at  the  same  university,  but  with  all  similar 
associations  throughout  Germany.  The  bond  of  their  union  is  a 
chivalrous,  or,  if  you  please,  a  captious  rule  of  honor,  and  its  basis  is 


90  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1816. 

the  sword.  The  object  is  not  literary,  but  strictly  municipal,  and  the 
whole  advantage  is  the  irresistible  influence  which  the  combination 
can  give  to  its  decisions,  either  against  a  student  or  a  citizen. 

At  Gottingen,  there  have  been,  time  out  of  mind,  seven  of  these 
societies,  —  according  to  the  seven  principal  States  from  which  the 
students  come,  —  as  the  Hanoverians,  the  Prussians,  the  Bruns- 
wickers,  etc.  They  are  in  defiance  of  the  laws  of  the  University, 
and  have  often  been  broken  up  by  the  government,  but  have  always 
reappeared  under  new  names.  Sometimes  they  have  been  called 
"  Orders,"  sometimes  "  Bonds  of  Virtue,"  sometimes  "  Clubs  of 
Honor,"  etc.  The  last  were  called  "  Landsmannschafts,"  or  "  Associa 
tions  of  Countrymen."  Their  object  was  twofold  :  to  settle  quarrels 
among  their  members,  and  to  defend  themselves  against  all  impositions 
of  the  citizens.  But  the  great  power  their  combination  gave  them 
proved  tyranny  in  injudicious  hands,  and  the  members  were  obliged 
to  fight  duels  where  no  offence  was  really  given,  and  the  citizens  were 
punished  where  no  injustice  or  fraud  had  been  practised.  They  had 
but  two  modes  of  proceeding,  and  both  were  sufficiently  summary.  If 
one  member  was  offended  with  another,  his  society  compelled  him 
to  fight  a  duel,  appointed  the  seconds  and  the  witnesses,  and  saw  that 
satisfaction  was  properly  given.  To  be  sure,  these  duels  hardly  de 
serve  so  imposing  a  name,  for  they  were  fought  with  such  weapons 
and  such  armor  that  they  were  seldom  bloody  and  could  never  be 
fatal ;  but  still  their  number  was  so  considerable  that  they  were  abso 
lutely  a  nuisance,  for  every  slight  offence  was  settled  by  them. 

This  was  the  first  mode  ;  the  second  was  when  a  member  offended 
the  club,  or  a  citizen  a  member,  and  then  the  punishment  was  by 
"  verschuss,"  or  non-intercourse.  If,  for  instance,  a  tradesman  had 
cheated  a  student,  if  his  landlord  had  treated  him  unkindly,  or  any 
body  with  whom  he  had  connection  had  offended  him,  he  complained 
to  his  club.  If  they  found  the  complaint  supported  and  sufficient, 
the  offender  was  put  into  "  verschiiss,"  —  that  is,  no  student  was  al 
lowed  to  have  anything  to  do  with  him.  If  he  was  a  shopkeeper,  his 
custom  was  gone  ;  if  he  was  a  restaurateur,  nobody  would  have  his 
dinner  from  him,  any  more  than  if  he  sent  out  poison  ;  and  if  he  let 
rooms,  nobody  would  take  lodgings  of  him.  In  short,  whatever  might 
be  the  occupation  of  the  offender,  it  was  gone.  Instances  of  this  sort 
of  punishment  are  not  at  all  rare.  Last  year,  a  student,  for  having 
spoken  disrespectfully  of  the  "  Landsmannschaft,"  was  put  under  the  ban 
of  the  Empire,  and,  after  braving  the  whole  University  some  weeks, 
and  its  marked  contempt,  went  to  Leipsic,  but  found  himself  received 


JE.  24]  SYSTEM  AT  GOTTINGEN.  91 

there  with  the  same  injuries,  and  was  finally  obliged  to  change  his 
name  and  go  to  Jena.  A  baker,  who  had  done  nothing  worse 
than  sue  a  student  for  his  regular  bill,  was  put  into  "  verschuss,"  and, 
after  striving  in  vain  to  live  independently  of  the  students  in  a  town 
supported  entirely  by  them,  found  himself  so  much  in  debt,  that  in 
despair  he  shot  himself.  And  the  very  man  in  whose  house  I  live, 
having  offended  a  student  in  his  capacity  of  confectioner,  was  com 
pelled,  above  a  year  since,  to  let  his  shop  to  another,  and  has  been 
starving  on  its  rent  in  the  vain  hope  that  the  students  will  at  last  give 
up  the  persecution  ;  but  he  has  just  sold  it  in  despair. 

These  are  the  bad  effects  of  this  remarkable  system.  That  it  has  its 
good  effects  also,  you  will  easily  believe  ;  for,  if  it  had  not,  it  would  not 
be  tolerated  a  moment  by  the  government,  and  indeed  could  not  long 
exist  among  a  large  body  of  young  men  who  are  really  studious  and 
regular  to  a  remarkable  degree,  and  whose  notions  of  justice  are,  like 
those  of  all  young  men,  essentially  pure  and  unperverted. 

The  advantages  of  the  system  are,  that  it  gives  a  character  and 
esprit  de  corps  to  the  whole  motley  mass  of  the  students,  which,  in 
universities  like  these  in  Germany,  could  not  otherwise  be  given  to 
them ;  that  it  enables  the  pro-rector  and  professors,  by  governing  a  few 
of  the  heads  of  the  clubs,  to  control  the  entire  multitude  under 
them  more  effectually  than  the  laws  will  enable,  or  the  spirit  of 
the  institution  permit  them  to  do  directly  ;  and  that  it  introduces 
in  their  behavior  to  one  another,  and  their  conduct  to  the  gov 
ernment,  a  degree  of  order  and  decorum,  and  a  general  gentle 
manly  spirit,  which  nothing  else  can  give  to  a  thousand  young  men 
brought  together  where  they  have  no  responsibility,  at  an  age  when 
they  have  not  yet  learnt  to  behave  well  without  a  superior  influence 
in  some  sort  to  compel  to  it.  The  evils,  on  the  contrary,  are  the  cap 
tious  rules  of  honor  which  are  maintained  by  it  among  the  students, 
terminating  in  innumerable  contemptible  duels,  and  occasionally  a 
flagrant  injustice  to  a  citizen, — though  certainly  to  the  citizens  it 
does  much  more  good  than  harm,  for  they  are  much  more  disposed 
and  interested  to  cheat  the  students  than  the  students  can  be  to 
oppress  them. 

On  the  whole,  therefore,  the  system  seems  to  me  to  be  bad, 
and  one  which  ought  to  be  exterminated,  though  at  the  same  time  I 
must  confess  to  you  that  many  of  the  professors  think  otherwise, 
and  are  persuaded  that,  while  the  laws  of  the  University  are  so 
loose  and  weak,  the  students  must  have  a  municipal  system  of  their 
own. 


92  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1816. 

Much  undoubtedly  depends  on  the  government  for  the  time  being. 
Under  a  vigilant  pro-rector,  who  prevents  these  clubs  from  gaining 
too  much  strength  or  boldness,  they  may  do  good ;  but  under  such 
pro-rectors  as  professors  may  commonly  be  expected  to  be,  who  are 
interested  to  preserve  their  own  popularity,  and  especially  under  a 
decidedly  weak  pro-rector,  they  must  do  much  mischief.  This  has 
lately  been  the  case  here. 

During  the  year  ending  in  February,  the  pro-rectorship  had 
fallen  to  two  professors  who  did  anything  rather  than  execute 
the  duties  of  first  magistrates  of  the  University,  and,  of  course, 
during  their  government  these  secret  "  Landsmannschafts "  had  in 
creased  in  boldness  until  their  existence  and  acts  were  as  notorious  as 
those  of  the  academical  senate  ;  and  the  duels  multiplied  till,  con 
temptible  as  they  are  individually,  they  became  an  intolerable 
nuisance.  Just  at  this  time  Prof.  Mitscherlich,  the  editor  of  Horace, 
became  in  his  turn  pro-rector,  and  proved  to  be  as  much  too  severe  aa 
his  predecessors  had  been  too  feeble  and  lax.  He  cited  at  once  many 
students  for  inconsiderable  and  forgotten  offences,  committed  under 
the  reign  of  the  last  pro-rectors,  and  was  going  on  to  purge  the  Uni 
versity  of  its  follies  more  thoroughly  than  was  prudent,  or  even 
desirable,  when  an  event  occurred  which  gave  a  higher  direction  to 
his  inquiries  and  punishments.  A  student  quarrelled  with  his  club 
in  the  following  manner.  A  house  had  been  put  into  "  verschiiss,"  and 
a  student  being  found  still  to  frequent  it,  the  sentence  he  had  violated 
fell  on  himself.  Exasperated  at  this,  he  threatened,  if  he  were  not 
reinstated,  to  expose  the  whole  secret  system  to  the  pro-rector.  You 
will  easily  imagine  that  this  injudicious  threat  produced  exactly  the 
opposite  effect  from  what  he  had  intended.  He  was  excommunicated 
with  book  and  bell,  and  received  with  contempt  and  injuries  where- 
ever  he  went.  Still  further  enraged  at  what  he  ought  to  have 
expected,  he  actually  sent  a  regular  and  ample  memoir  to  the  pro- 
rector,  and  fled  the  city.  The  moment  the  fact  was  known,  or  rather 
suspected,  such  a  sensation  was  excited  as  no  one  can  imagine  who 
did  not  witness  it. 

There  was  no  tumult  or  violence,  but  the  whole  appearance  of 
the  city  was  changed.  The  streets,  always  before  filled  only  with 
young  men  hastening  to  their  lectures,  were  now  crowded  with  little 
"assemblages,"  as  Gov.  Gerry  would  call  them,  so  that  it  was 
difficult  to  pass  on  the  sidewalks  ;  the  benches  in  the  lecture-rooms, 
where  a  vacant  seat  was  a  rarity,  grew  visibly  thin  and  empty,  and 
wherever  you  met  a  student  he  had  the  hurried  and  anxious  air  of  a 


JE.  24.]  SECRET  CLUBS.  93 

man  of  business.  The  whole  character  of  things  was  altered.  The 
first  determination  was  to  have  personal  vengeance  on  the  traitor. 
Guards  were  posted  on  the  roads  to  prevent  his  escape  ;  for  two 
nights  a  watch  of  three  hundred  patrolled  the  ramparts  and  the 
streets ;  and  if  he  had  been  caught,  he  might  have  escaped  with 
his  life,  but  he  would  have  boasted  of  nothing  else.  Fortunately 
his  prudence,  or  that  of  the  pro-rector,  had  secured  his  flight  before 
his  treason  was  suspected,  and  he  has  not  since  been  seen  or  heard  of. 
His  information,  however,  has  enabled  the  pro-rector  to  arrest  the 
heads  of  the  clubs,  and  possess  himself  of  their  records,  where  he 
found  a  regular  list  of  all  the  officers  and  members,  amounting  to 
between  five  or  six  hundred  ;  and,  among  other  curious  documents, 
seized  a  protocol  containing  a  detailed  account  of  ninety-six  of  these 
harmless  duels  fought  in  five  months. 

So  full  a  discovery  precluded  all  subterfuge  or  defence.  After  a 
week  of  excitement  and  cabal,  during  which  all  study  was  suspended, 
and  there  was  a  kind  of  reign  of  terror  in  the  University,  the  most 
prominent  members  of  the  clubs  began  to  leave  the  city.  This  was 
immediately  prevented  by  a  public  ordinance,  laying  them  all  under 
city  arrest,  and  forbidding  them  to  go  out  of  the  city  gates  under  any 
pretence.  This  excited  a  new  effervescence,  for  it  indeed  was  a 
measure  of  needless  severity,  and  fell  upon  the  just  as  well  as  the 
unjust.  New  councils  were  held,  and  after  much  deliberation  a 
deputation  was  sent  to  the  government  at  Hanover,  praying  for  its  in 
terference.  This,  however,  produced  no  effect.  The  pro-rector  still 
went  on  with  his  investigations,  which  were  imdoubtedly  often  vexa 
tious  and  unwise,  though  certainly,  in  general,  just  ;  and  at  length, 
after  three  weeks  of  anxious  and  burning  excitement,  such  AS  I  should 
not  have  imagined  the  affair  would  have  justified,  five  students  were 
publicly  exiled,  ab  urbe  et  agro ;  twenty-four  received  a  consilium 
abeundi,  or  common  expulsion ;  and  the  rest  a  general  reprimand 
and  warning. 

Thus  for  the  fifth  or  sixth  time  these  secret  clubs  —  which  really 
grow  out  of  the  circumstances  of  the  German  Empire,  and  are  per 
haps  formed  by  a  kind  of  instinct  in  the  German  character — have 
been  suppressed.  About  two  hundred  students  have  left  the  Univer 
sity  in  disgust ;  but  they  will  not  be  missed  three  months  hence, 
even  if  none  of  them  return,  as  I  suppose  many  will,  on  cooler  reflec 
tion. 

It  is  thought,  however,  that  the  want  of  these  troublesome  aids  to 
the  order  of  academic  life  will  be  occasionally  felt  during  the  next 


94  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1S1G. 

year  in  the  rudeness,  which,  in  such  an  interregnum,  is  always 
observed  to  creep  into  the  manners  of  the  students  ;  and  nobody 
doubts  that  under  some  other  name  or  form  they  will  reappear  and 
be  again  crushed. 

I  did  not  mean,  my  dear  Edward,  to  have  written  you  such  an 
alarming  epistle,  and  you  will  perhaps  repent  having  set  my  pen  go 
ing  on  a  subject  where  it  is  so  much  easier  to  be  voluble  than  amus 
ing.  But  this  is  your  affair  ;  and,  good  or  bad,  it  is  a  double  letter,  and 
I  shall  expect  two  in  return 

Do  you  think  of  me  sometimes  as  the  sun  sets  behind  the  Brookline 
hills  1  We  have  a  sunset  here,  too,  and  I  never  see  it  without  think 
ing  how  often  we  have  admired  it  together  from  the  Mall. 

Farewell, 

GEO.  T. 

To  DR.  WALTER  CRANKING. 

GOTTINGEN,  May  17,  1816. 

....  You  ask  me  a  great  many  questions  about  Blumenbach,  and 
I  imagine  you  have  received  anticipated  answers  to  them,  for  in  sev 
eral  letters  to  you  and  to  other  friends  I  have  said  a  great  deal  about 
him.  He  is  the  first  man  in  the  University,  past  all  doubt,  whether 
in  relation  to  his  original  talents,  to  the  vast  variety  and  accuracy  of 
his  knowledge,  or  to  his  influence  over  the  other  professors  and  with 
the  government,  and  his  general  knowledge  of  the  world  and  of  men. 
....  His  collections  in  all  the  different  branches  of  natural  history 
are  very  remarkable ;  the  most  curious  is  that  of  one  hundred  and 
seventy-three  skulls,  of  all  ages,  countries,  and  people,  which  he  has 
brought  together  to  illustrate  his  doctrines  respecting  the  human 
anatomy,  and  which  are  arranged  with  philosophical  neatness  in  a 
room  to  which  his  family  have  well  given  the  name  of  Golgotha.  It 
is  extremely  amusing,  as  well  as  instructive,  to  hear  the  old  gentleman 
pour  out  his  learning  and  enthusiasm  in  explaining  the  advantages 
of  the  collection,  and  the  distinctive  peculiarities  of  each  of  its  mem 
bers.  "  What  can  be  more  beautiful,"  said  he,  day  before  yesterday, 
"than  the  fair  forehead  and  Grecian  nose  of  that  Circassian,  — what 
can  be  more  deformed  than  the  wide  interval  between  the  eyes  of  that 
Calmuck  and  the  projecting  chin  of  that  Hottentot,  — or  what  more 
loathsome  than  the  low  sensuality  expressed  in  the  sharp  projection 
of  the  upper  jaw  of  that  Jew  ? "  The  marks  he  pointed  out  were 
certainly  all  there ;  but  it  is  impossible  to  go  into  the  details  of  this 
system  here 


M.  24.]  PROF.   DISSEN.  95 

To  ELISHA  TICKNOK. 

GOTTINGEN,  June  5,  1816. 

....  I  was  telling  you  of  my  acquaintance.  Saturday  evening  I 
commonly  spend  with  Eichhorn,  whose  immense  learning,  joined  to  his 
extreme  vivacity,  make  it  as  pleasant  as  it  is  useful.  In  the  last 
respect,  however,  I  find  the  time  I  spend  with  Prof.  Dissen  the 
most  profitable.  He  is  still  a  young  man  of  hardly  thirty,  and  yet 
has  been  already  called  as  professor  to  three  universities,  and  is  looked 
upon  here  as  superior  to  Heyne.  I  desired  to  have  two  hours  a  week 
of  him,  to  pursue  the  literary  history  of  Greece  systematically,  un 
der  his  direction.  This,  however,  he  declined,  saying  that  what  he 
could  do  for  me  in  this  way  he  should  not  consider  as  instruction, 
but  as  an  amusement ;  and  therefore,  if  I  would  come  every  week  and 
spend  one  or  two  evenings  with  him,  his  advice  and  assistance  would 
always  be  at  my  service.  I  commonly  go,  therefore,  once  or  twice 
in  the  week  at  eight  in  the  evening  to  him,  and  if  I  get  home 
before  eleven  I  think  I  am  early,  though  I  have  trespassed  beyond 
my  rule. 

Indeed,  there  is  no  man  in  Gottingen  of  my  acquaintance  who 
comes  so  entirely  up  to  my  idea  of  what  a  scholar  ought  to  be  as  he 
does.  His  prodigious  learning  has  not  by  its  amount  impaired  the 
freshness  of  his  feelings,  or  quenched  an  enthusiasm  which  is  so  lively 
as  to  be  even  injurious  to  his  feeble  constitution,  nor  by  its  minute 
ness  prevented  him  from  having  the  most  general  and  philosophical 
views  of  the  nature  and  objects  of  his  profession  ;  while  at  the  same 
time  he  has  a  deep  religious  sensibility,  of  which  I  know  no  other 
example  here,  and  an  earnest  and  prevalent  desire  to  impart  his 
learning  and  do  good,  which  consecrates  all  his  exertions. 

You  see,  therefore,  my  plan.  I  have  every  day  three  recitations, 
and  besides  these  study  nine  hours,  which  is  as  much,  I  suppose,  as  my 
health  will  bear.  My  chief  objects  are  still  Greek  and  German,  my 
subsidiary  objects  Italian  and  French,  my  amusement  literary  history, 

chiefly  ancient,  and  books  that  will  fit  me  for  my  future  travels 

Add  to  all  this  that  I  am  perfectly  well,  and  just  contented  enough  to 
keep  me  always  industrious,  that  I  may  not  fall  into  the  horrors  of 
homesickness,  and  I  do  not  think  you  will  be  dissatisfied  with  my 
situation. 


96  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1816. 

To  EDWARD  T.  CHANNINGK 

GOTTINGEN,  June  16,  1816. 

....  In  one  of  your  last  letters,  dear  Edward,  you  told  me  that 
your  brother  William*  would  like  to  hear  something  about  the  kind 
of  metaphysics  taught  in  the  schools  here.  I  forgot  at  the  moment  to 
answer  this  inquiry,  and  should  perhaps  have  forgotten  it  still  longer, 
if  I  had  not  last  week  read  his  third  pamphlet  in  the  controversy 
with  Worcester ;  and  the  natural  desire  which  this  excited,  of  recalling 
myself  to  the  memory  of  one  who  had  just  given  me  so  much  pleasure, 
reminded  me  of  his  wish,  and  I  determined  to  take  the  first  leisure 
hour  I  should  find  to  fulfil  it. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  necessary  to  take  a  few  dates,  to  see  how 
rapidly  the  metaphysical  systems  have  followed  each  other.  From 
1790  to  1800  Kant  ruled  unquestioned  through  all  Germany.  For 
three  or  four  years  succeeding,  Fichte  was  the  lord  of  the  ascendant, 
till  Schslling  pushed  him  from  his  stool,  and  kept  it  a  few  years. 
But  before  1809  had  closed,  a  rebellion  of  common-sense  through  the 
land  had  dispossessed  them  all,  and  since  that  no  one  has  succeeded 
to  their  influence.  Of  their  systems  it  is  not  necessary  to  speak.  It 
is  only  necessary  to  know  that  Fichte  and  Schelling  divided  the 
system  of  Kant,  and  that  the  one,  by  pushing  his  idealism  too  far,  in 
the  German  phrase,  made  Nature  independent  of  God,  or  undeified 
Nature  ;  while  the  other,  being  a  man  of  poetical  feeling,  went  into 
the  other  extreme,  and  almost  identified  God  and  Nature,  —  so  that 
before  the  defeat  of  Kant's  system  as  a  whole,  and  then  in  both  parts 
separately,  his  school  came  to  a  total  bankruptcy.  In  this  state  you 
must  now  consider  German  metaphysics,  taken  as  a  system,  or  a 
collection  of  systems,  and  in  this  state  they  must  remain  till  some 
man  of  high  talents  comes  forward,  like  Kant,  at  once  to  destroy  and 
to  build  up. 

But  you  will  ask  whether  these  systems  and  revolutions  left  no 
traces  behind  them  which  are  still  visible.  Certainly,  very  many 
and  very  important  ones.  First,  you  may  observe  an  extreme  excite 
ment  in  the  minds  of  the  Germans  upon  all  metaphysical  subjects, 
produced  by  such  rapid  and  important  revolutions.  These  three 
great  metaphysicians  were  men  of  very  rare  endowments,  of  uncom 
mon  weight  and  force  of  talents,  and  to  the  sort  of  uproar  and  tumult 
in  which  they  kept  the  country  for  twenty  years,  is  undoubtedly  to 
be  traced  no  inconsiderable  portion  of  that  general  metaphysical 

*  The  Rev.  William  Ellery  Channing. 


M.  24.]  GERMAN  METAPHYSICS.  97 

activity  and  acuteness,  and  that  spirit  of  philosophical  vehemence, 
which  now  distinguish  Germany  from  all  other  nations.  I  mean  that 
vehement  exertion  which  is  now  making  to  have  all  sciences  and 
knowledge  reduced  to  philosophical  systems,  which  is  certainly  doing 
wonders  in  some  respects.  And,  secondly,  you  may  observe  an  extreme 
unwillingness  to  receive  any  new  system.  The  whole  generation,  in 
this  respect,  seem  like  men  who  have  just  come  out  from  a  long 
campaign,  and  are  pleased  with  nothing  less  than  the  thought  of 
beginning  a  new  one. 

To  these  two  consequences  of  the  success  and  failure  of  Kant, 
Fichte,  and  Schelling,  is,  I  think,  in  a  great  measure  to  be  traced  the 
present  condition  of  metaphysics  in  Germany.  Within  the  lives  of 
the  present  generation  of  instructors,  these  three  systems  have  had 
their  respective  triumphs,  and  of  course  every  one  who  wishes  to  be 
thought  a  metaphysician  must  lay  the  very  foundation  of  his  preten 
sions  in  a  thorough  knowledge  of  them  all.  But  within  the  same 
period,  too,  they  have  all  been  exploded,  and  of  course  every  one 
who  recollects  the  mortification  of  that  fall  will  be  careful  how  he 
exposes  himself  to  a  similar  fate.  The  first  makes  them  thorough, 
deep,  and  acute  ;  the  last  makes  them  cautious.  The  consequence 
of  both  is  that  the  number  of  powerful  metaphysicians  in  Ger 
many  is  at  this  moment  very  great,  and  that  they  are  almost  all 
eclectic. 

I  do  not  mean,  when  I  talk  of  the  overthrow  of  these  three  systems, 
that  no  adherents  to  them  are  now  to  be  found.  Far  from  it.  In 
Leipsic,  where  revolutions  in  modes  of  thinking  are  effected  with 
difficulty,  perhaps  the  majority  of  those  who  examine  such  subjects 
are  still  followers  of  Kant.  In  Berlin,  where  Fichte  still  lives  and 
has  lately  much  distinguished  himself  by  some  very  powerful  pieces 
to  arouse  and  sustain  the  Prussian  spirit  against  the  French  usurpa 
tion,  his  philosophy  has  still  some  active  friends.  And,  in  Jena, 
the  feelings  awakened  by  Schelling's  eloquence  and  enthusiasm  have 
not  yet  grown  cold. 

But,  after  all,  the  number  is  comparatively  small,  and  the  spirit  fee 
ble  ;  and  if  you  go  through  Germany  and  take  the  whole  mass  of 
metaphysicians  together,  you  will  rarely,  very  rarely,  find  one  who 
professes  himself  of  either  of  the  schools.  Particularly  at  the  uni 
versities,  you  will  find  that  each  one  has  a  system  of  his  own,  collected 
from  the  disjecta  membra  of  the  systems  of  Kant,  Fichte,  and  Schel 
ling.  These  fragments  he  has  commonly  formed,  with  his  own  addi 
tions,  into  a  more  or  less  harmonious  whole,  to  which  his  hearers 

VOL.  i.  5  G 


98  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1816. 

listen  with  all  due  attention  and  reverence,  but  in  which  they  trust 
hardly  more  than  in  the  forgotten  heresies  of  Leibnitz  and  Wolf. 
So  that  you  may  set  it  down  as  an  almost  universal  fact  that  the 
teachers  and  disciples  are  alike  eclectics. 

A  young  man  at  the  university  commonly  gets  this  freedom  by 
hearing  three  or  four  different  professors  expound  and  defend  as  many 
different  systems. 

This  is  a  very  remarkable,  but  I  am  not  ready  to  say  an  unfortu 
nate  state  of  things.  The  worthiest  object  of  metaphysical  studies  is 
to  excite  and  enlarge  the  faculties,  and  form  deep  and  thorough 
thinkers.  Never  was  this  so  completely  and  so  generally  effected  as 
it  now  is  in  Germany  ;  and,  as  the  object  is  attained,  why  should  we 
complain  or  regret  that  it  is  not  done  by  the  means  which  we  have 
usually  considered  indispensable  1 

As  to  the  peculiar  character  of  these  metaphysics,  you  will  get  all 
the  information  necessary  from  Mad.  de  Stael.  They  are  undoubtedly 
very  different  from  the  metaphysics  taught  by  Locke,  Reid,  and  Stew 
art.  The  Germans  reproach  the  English  with  treating  such  subjects 
psychologically,  or,  in  other  words,  not  sufficiently  distinguishing  the 
difference  between  ideas  and  sensations  ;  and  the  English  reply  that 
the  Germans  are  unintelligible  idealists.  The  difference  between  the 
two  is  very  great,  and,  moreover,  it  is,  I  think,  a  natural  and  constitu 
tional  difference. 

In  England,  from  the  character  of  the  people  and  the  nature  of  the 
government,  which  for  a  thousand  years  have  been  continually  acting 
and  reacting  upon  each  other,  many  things  must  be  made  to  serve 
some  practical  purpose,  and  nothing  is  valued  which  is  not  immediately 
useful.  In  Germany,  on  the  contrary,  the  national  character,  from 
the  first  intimation  of  it  in  Tacitus,  and  the  tendency  of  the  govern 
ment,  from  its  first  development  to  the  present  day,  have  always  had 
an  effect  directly  opposite.  A  man  of  science  here  lives  entirely  iso 
lated  from  the  world ;  and  the  very  republic  of  letters,  which  is  a  more 
real  body  in  Germany  than  it  ever  was  in  any  other  country,  has  no 
connection  with  the  many  little  governments  through  which  it  is 
scattered  without  being  broken  or  divided.  From  this  separation  of 
the  practical  affairs  from  science  and  letters  to  the  extraordinary 
degree  in  which  it  is  done  in  Germany,  comes,  I  think,  the  theoretical 
nature  of  German  literature  in  general,  and  of  German  metaphysics 
in  particular. 

This  is  the  way  in  which  I  account  for  the  origin  and  prevalence 
of  ^Locke's  system  of  sensations,  and  Hartley's  and  Priestley's  material- 


M.  24.]  GERMAN   METAPHYSICS.  99 

ism  in  the  one  country,  and  Kant's  and  Fichte's  high,  abstract  idealism 
in  the  other  ;  because  in  England  the  man  of  letters  must  be  more  or 
less  a  practical  man ;  in  Germany,  he  is  necessarily  as  pure  a  theorist  or 
idealist  as  the  Greeks  were.  But,  whether  my  explanation  of  the  cause 
be  right  or  wrong,  the  fact  remains  unquestionable,  and  the  next  thing 
you  will  desire  to  know,  will  be  the  effects  of  this  system  of  things. 

They  are  undoubtedly  manifold ;  more  perhaps  than  I  suspect,  and 
certainly  more  than  the  Germans  themselves  believe  ;  but  two  are 
very  obvious,  and  more  important  probably  than  all  the  others.  The 
first  is  an  extreme  freedom,  and,  as  I  should  call  it,  latitudinarianism 
in  thinking,  speaking,  writing,  and  teaching  on  all  subjects,  even 
law,  religion,  and  politics,  with  the  single  exception  of  the  actual 
measures  of  the  government.  A  more  perfect  freedom,  and  in  most 
cases  a  more  perfect  use  and  indulgence  of  it,  cannot  be  imagined 
than  is  now  to  be  found  in  Germany;  and  nobody  can  read  the  books 
published,  without  observing  their  high  abstract  nature,  and  seeing 
that  their  free  tone  is  derived  almost,  perhaps  altogether,  from 
the  general  character  of  the  prevalent  metaphysics.  The  second  is 
an  extreme  mental  activity,  produced  by  the  necessity  which  every 
scholar  has  felt  himself  under  to  understand  all  three  of  the  great 
systems  which,  within  the  last  thirty  years,  everybody  has  been 
obliged  to  talk  about  ;  and  then  a  consequent  necessity  that  he  who 
writes  a  book  must,  whatever  be  his  subject,  write  it  in  a  philosophi 
cal,  discriminating  spirit,  and  on  a  broad  and  systematic  plan. 

On  this  last  are  founded  the  chief  improvements  which  the  Ger 
mans  are  now  making  in  literature  and  science,  and  both  are  to  be  al 
most  exclusively  attributed  to  the  peculiar  character  of  their  meta 
physics.  These,  then,  are  the  two  most  important  results  of  the 
German  metaphysics  :  the  first,  bad  in  the  extravagance  to  which  it 
is  now  carried  ;  and  the  second,  essentially  good,  and  continually 
tending,  I  think,  —  unless  my  views  of  human  nature  are  too  favor 
able,  —  to  diminish  and  extirpate  the  evil  of  the  first. 

I  have  now,  my  dear  Edward,  explained  to  you  as  well  as  I  am 

able  in  a  letter  the  three  points  I  intended  to  explain Such  as 

it  is,  it  is  as  good  an  idea  as  I  can  give  you,  in  so  short  a  space,  of  the 
present  condition  of  metaphysics  in  Germany 

To  ELISHA  TICKNOB. 

GOTTINGEN,  June  20,  1816. 

....  We  have  always  been  accustomed  to  hear  and  to  talk  of  the 
republic  of  letters  as  a  state  of  things  in  which  talent  and  learning 


100  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1816. 

make  the  only  distinction ;  and  the  good-natured  Goldsmith  even 
went  so  far  as  to  make  a  book  about  it,  and  describe  it  as  accurately 
as  a  dealer  in  statistics  and  topography.  But,  after  all  that  has  been 
said,  and  after  all  his  description,  the  thing  itself  remained  as  unreal 
as  Sidney's  "Arcadia,"  or  Sir  Thomas  More's  "  Utopia."  The  system 
of  universal  patronage  in  England,  which  it  did  not  need  Miss 
Edgeworth  to  show,  is  essentially  bad,  even  when  most  successfully 
applied  ;  the  splendor  of  the  Court  of  France,  which  made  all  its 
literature  and  literary  men  as  cold  and  polished  as  itself ;  the  little 
tyrants  of  Italy  and  the  great  ones  of  Spain  and  Portugal,  —  prevented 
everything  like  a  liberal  union  of  the  men  of  letters,  and  an  unbiassed 
freedom  in  the  modes  of  thinking  in  all  these  countries. 

In  Germany,  however,  from  the  force  of  circumstances  and  char 
acter,  a  literary  democracy  has  found  full  room  to  thrive  and  rule. 
Here,  there  can  be  no  broad  system  of  patronage,  for  the  people  are 
too  poor  and  the  governments  too  inconsiderable.  The  splendor  of  a 
court  can  have  no  influence  where  there  is  no  metropolis  ;  and  as 
for  tyranny,  I  do  not  think  it  has  ever  pressed  very  hard  on  Germany, 
except  in  the  French  times  ;  and  they  were  too  short  to  produce  a 
lasting  effect,  especially  as  the  reaction  has  been  so  violent. 

The  men  of  letters  here,  therefore,  have  always  been  dependent  for 
their  bread  and  reputation  on  their  own  unassisted  and  unembar 
rassed  talents  and  exertions  ;  and  as  the  higher  and  more  respon 
sible  classes  about  the  courts,  etc.,  have  always  spoken  a  different 
language,  and  had  different  feelings,  manners,  and  views,  and  a 
different  literature  (I  mean  French,  which,  however,  is  now 
going  out  of  fashion),  the  men  of  letters  gradually  became  sep 
arated  from  the  active  and  political  men,  until  at  last  this  division 
became  so  distinct  and  perfect  that  they  formed  an  entirely  separate 
class  through  all  the  German  States,  and  have  long  since  ceased  to 
be  amenable  to  any  influence  but  that  of  the  general  opinion  of  their 
own  body.  In  this  way,  a  genuine  republic  of  letters  arose  in  the 
north  of  Germany.  At  first  it  comprehended  but  a  small  portion  of 
the  territories  of  the  unwieldy  empire,  hardly  more  than  Saxony, 
Prussia,  and  Hanover,  and  the  small  States  lying  round  them  ;  but, 
as  Protestant  learning  and  philosophical  modes  of  thinking  and  lib 
eral  universities  were  extended,  the  limits  of  this  invisible  empire 
extended  with  them. 

The  German  and  reformed  portion  of  Switzerland  soon  came  in  ; 
soon  after  Denmark,  and  then  a  part  of  Poland  ;  and  now,  lately,  the 
king  of  Bavaria,  by  the  establishment  of  gymnasia,  and  an  academy 


&.  24.]  GERMAN  SYSTEM.  101 

on  the  German  system,  and  by  calling  in  the  Protestants  of  the  North 
to  help  him,  has  set  his  improvements  in  motion,  and  the  Emperor 
Alexander,  by  founding  German  universities  and  appointing  German 
professors  to  them,  have  almost  brought  Bavaria  and  Russia  into  the 
league  of  letters.  .In  this  way,  without  noise  and  almost  without 
notice,  from  Berne  to  St.  Petersburg,  and  from  Munich  to  Copen 
hagen,  a  republic  has  been  formed,  extending  through  all  the  great 
and  small  governments,  and  independent  of  the  influence  of  them 
all,  which  by  its  activity  unites  all  the  interests  of  learning,  while  by 
its  extent  it  prevents  low  prejudice  from  so  often  oppressing  indi 
vidual  merit ;  and  finally,  by  its  aggregate  power  resting,  as  it  must, 
on  general  opinion,  it  is  able  to  exert  a  force  which  nothing  that  nat 
urally  comes  under  its  influence  can  resist. 

I  could  give  you  many  curious  instances  and  proofs  of  the  efficiency 
of  this  system,  and  of  its  power  to  separate  the  men  of  letters  from 
the  other  classes  of  society  in  their  opinions  and  feelings  ;  but  I  have 
room  for  only  two. 

When  you  talk  with  a  man  in  civil  life  of  his  country,  you  will 
find  that  he  means  that  peculiar  and  independent  district  in  which 
he  was  born,  as  Prussia,  or  Hesse,  etc. ;  and  you  will  find,  too,  that  his 
patriotic  attachment  to  this  spot  is  often  as  exclusive  and  vehement 
as  that  of  John  Bull  or  a  true  American.  But  talk  with  a  man  of 
letters,  and  you  will  instantly  perceive  that  when  he  speaks  of  his 
country  he  is  really  thinking  of  all  that  portion  of  Germany,  and  the 
neighboring  territories,  through  which  Protestant  learning  and  a  phil 
osophical  mode  of  thinking  are  diffused.  Nay,  further,  take  a  Prussian, 
or  Hanoverian,  or  Hessian  politician  or  soldier,  and  he  will  talk  with 
as  much  horror  of  expatriation  from  Prussia,  Hanover,  or  Hesse  as 
Bonaparte  ever  did  of  "  denationalizing "  a  flag  ;  but  a  professor  or  a 
rector  of  a  gymnasium  moves  as  willingly  from  one  of  these  countries 
into  another,  and  feels  himself  as  much  at  home  after  his  removal,  as 
if  it  were  only  from  Cassel  to  Marburg,  or  from  Berlin  to  Halle. 

My  second  proof  is,  that  they  not  only  feel  themselves  to  belong 
to  an  independent  body  of  men,  but  are  really  considered  to  be  so 
by  the  several  governments  under  which  they  happen  to  live.  I 
do  not  now  refer  to  the  unlimited  freedom  of  the  universities,  and 
the  modes  of  instruction  there,  which  make  each  professor  indepen 
dent  ;  I  refer  merely  to  the  mode  in  which  professors  are  removed 
from  one  country  to  another.  The  king  of  Prussia  would  not  ap 
point  to  any  military  or  civil  service,  or  even  to  any  clerical  office  in 
his  dominions,  any  but  a  Prussian  ;  the  king  of  Hanover,  any  but  a 


102  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1816. 

Hanoverian,  etc.  ;  but  if  a  man  of  letters  is  wanted,  all  such  distinc 
tions  are  not  even  thought  of ;  nor  is  it  the  least  reproach  to  the 
person  appointed,  or  the  least  offence  to  his  government,  that  he  is 
seduced  from  his  native  country,  though  it  certainly  would  be  the 
highest  in  the  other  cases.  Thus  Eichhoru  was  brought  from  Weimar  ; 
Boeckh,  now  so  famous  in  Berlin,  was  a  Hanoverian ;  Heyne  was  a 
Saxon ;  Buhle,  the  editor  of  Aristotle,  is  in  Prussia,  etc.  ;  and  new 
instances  of  this  sort  are  occurring  every  day  through  the  whole  of 
Germany. 

These  two  proofs  are  certainly  sufficient  to  show  the  existence  and 
power  of  a  republic  of  letters.  If  I  had  room,  I  would  like  to 
show  you  its  especial  influence  upon  the  individuals,  institutions,  and 
territories  which  fall  within  its  sphere  ;  but  this  must  be  done  by 
details  too  numerous  for  a  letter ;  and  besides,  when  you  recollect 
the  present  political,  moral,  and  local  situation  of  Germany,  you  will 
easily  see  its  most  important  tendencies,  and  conjecture  many  of  its 

coming  effects 

Always  your  affectionate, 

GEO.  T. 
To  ELISHA  TICKNOR. 

GOTTTNGEN,  July  6,  1816. 

....  I  know  not,  dear  father,  that  I  can  say  anything  more 
welcome  to  you  than  that  my  studies  of  all  kinds  go  on  well.  I  have 
lately  taken  upon  me  to  learn  something  of  the  present  political  and 
moral  condition  of  Germany.  This  I  have  undertaken  under  the 
direction  of  Prof.  Saalfeld,  a  young  man  who  has  lately  distinguished 
himself  by  several  publications  on  the  present  politics  of  Europe,  and 
by  a  course  of  lectures  on  the  "  Spirit  of  the  Times."  I  have  but  lit 
tle  leisure  to  give  to  this  branch  of  study  ;  for,  useful  and  interesting 
as  it  is,  it  is  not  necessary  ;  and  I  have  long  since  learned  that  what 
is  not  necessary  to  my  purposes  must  be  considered  as  amusement. 
....  As  yet  I  have  met  with  nothing  in  my  inquiries  that  has 
more  struck  and  moved  me  than  the  means  by  which  Prussia  has 
made  herself  the  first  power  in  the  German  Empire,  and  perhaps 
placed  herself  in  a  condition  at  last  to  control  its  destinies. 

By  the  peace  of  Tilsit,  Prussia  gave  up  to  France  about  one  half 
of  her  population,  and  became  at  once  the  subject  of  a  system  of  plun 
der  and  outrage  such  as  no  nation,  I  presume,  was  ever  before  sub 
jected  to,  and  which  soon  brought  her  to  the  verge  of  despair.  In 
the  dark  and  melancholy  winter  of  1808,  when  the  measure  of  French 


M.  24.]  PRUSSIA.  103 

power  and  European  suffering  were  alike  full,  at  a  moment  when 
all  hope  of  relief  seemed  to  have  fled  from  the  Continent,  and  Prussia 
herself  to  have  been  marked  out  as  the  peculiar  object  of  French 
vengeance,  —  at  this  moment,  when  the  rest  of  Germany  lay  in 
abject  subjection,  the  ministry  of  Prussia  conceived  and  announced 
the  determination  of  making  up  in  moral  strength  what  they  had 
lost  in  physical.  From  that  moment  the  character  of  Prussia  began 
to  change.  The  means  were  no  sooner  wanted  than  they  were  found. 
More  freedom  was  gradually  given  to  the  lower  classes  ;  more  schools 
were  established  for  their  instruction  ;  societies  were  formed  under 
the  direction  of  the  government  whose  object  was  to  promote  indus 
try,  order,  and  economy  among  the  people  ;  and  finally  the  king 
founded  a  new  university  at  Berlin,  from  which  a  free  spirit  has  gone 
forth  that  has  wrought  like  a  fever  through  all  Germany.  In  short, 
all  the  talents,  influence,  and  activity  which  the  councils  of  the  king 
could  command,  were  directly  applied  to  repress  luxury,  to  promote 
industry,  and  to  diffuse  information  among  the  people,  and  thus  give 
a  new  moral  character  to  the  whole  nation. 

Such  designs  were  suited  to  the  spirit  of  the  times,  and  they 
therefore  succeeded  beyond  the  hopes  of  those  who  first  conceived 
them.  It  was  in  this  way  that  Prussia  was  gradually  and  systemat 
ically  prepared  for  emancipation,  and  enabled  to  act  with  more  vigor 
and  success  when  that  moment  arrived.  The  government  now  find 
this  spirit  dangerous.  They  have  used  it  as  long  as  it  suited  their 
purposes,  and  would  now  gladly  suppress  it.  The  people,  however, 
who  have  thus  been  taught  freer  notions  than  they  had  before  known, 
and  who  above  all  feel  that  they  have  emancipated  themselves  rather 
than  been  emancipated  by  the  government,  are  not  willing  to  return 
to  their  original  subjection.  In  consequence  of  this,  the  spirit  of  the 
government  and  the  spirit  of  the  people  are  now  decidedly  at  vari 
ance,  and  time  must  determine  which  will  prevail. 

To  MRS.  E.  TICKNOB. 

GOTTINGEN,  July  21,  1816. 

....  In  my  own  situation  I  know  not  that  any  change  has  taken 
place  since  I  last  wrote  to  you,  excepting  in  our  dinner  society  at  old 
Judge  Zacharia's.  Madame  Blumenbach  and  her  daughter  have  gone 
to  the  baths  at  Ems  for  their  health  and  amusement ;  and  as  the 
knight  does  not  choose  to  eat  his  dinner  quite  alone,  he  dines  with 
us.  His  unwearied  and  inexhaustible  gayety  of  spirits,  and  his  end- 


104  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1816. 

less  fund  of  curious  and  learned  anecdote,  make  him  at  once  the  cen 
tre  and  life  of  a  party,  which,  to  be  sure,  was  before  neither  very  life 
less  nor  very  sad.  Every  day  he  has  something  new  and  strange  to 
tell ;  and  as  he  takes  a  particular  delight  in  teasing  me,  he  commonly 
relates  something  out  of  the  way  respecting  our  North  American 
Indians,  which  by  a  dexterous  turn  he  contrives  to  make  those  present 
think  is  equally  true  of  the  citizens  of  the  United  States,  and  ends  by 
citing  some  of  the  strange  opinions  of  Buffon  or  Raynal  to  support 
himself,  and  put  me  out  of  countenance.  Of  course  we  come  at  once 
into  a  regular  discussion,  in  which  he  goes  on  to  allege  more  perverse 
authorities  against  me,  calls  us  a  younger  and  feebler  creation,  says 
that  we  have  not  yet  freed  ourselves  from  the  rude  manners  of  the 
wilderness,  etc.,  etc.  This  soon  finishes  with  a  general  laugh,  some 
times  against  one  side,  sometimes  against  the  other,  though  oftenest,  I 
think,  against  me  ;  for,  if  I  have  the  best  of  the  argument,  he  always 
has,  and  always  will  have,  the  best  of  the  joke. 

This,  however,  though  it  ends  the  discussion  for  the  time,  does  not 
finally  conclude  it.  The  next  day  the  old  gentleman  comes  with  his 
books  and  authorities  to  support  all  he  had  said  the  day  before  ;  and 
this  he  is  generally  able  to  do  by  some  means  or  other,  for  there  is 
nothing  so  absurd  that  has  not  at  some  time  been  said  about  us  ;  and 
though  he  knows  as  well  as  anybody  what  is  true,  and  what  is  exag 
gerated  or  false,  he  proceeds  at  once  to  argue  for  victory  and  not  for 
truth.  Still,  with  all  his  inexhaustible  learning,  he  is  often  unable  to 
find  perverse  authorities  enough  to  support  what  in  a  moment  of 
thoughtless  humor  he  has  said  merely  to  tease  me  ;  and  so,  to  supply 
what  is  wanting  in  the  litera  scripta,  he  invents  extemporaneously 
whatever  suits  his  immediate  purpose.  Thus,  a  few  days  ago,  as  I  had 
denied  that  the  Americans  use  the  Indian  steam-baths  made  by  pour 
ing  water  upon  hot  stones,  the  old  gentleman  had  come  with  a  curious 
letter  of  William  Penn's  on  the  subject,  which  he  read  aloud  in  Eng 
lish  ;  but  as  this  went  no  further  than  to  the  Indians,  and  not  to  the 
whites,  he  adroitly  inserted  a  sentence  or  two  gratis,  from  which  it 
seemed  the  practice  was  common  in  Boston  ;  and  he  did  the  thing  so 
admirably  that  I  did  not  at  first  suspect  the  trick.  Two  days  after 
wards  he  undertook  to  play  off  a  similar  joke  with  a  French  book. 
But,  as  I  had  luckily  remarked  that  it  was  printed  in  1588,  above 
thirty  years  before  the  first  colonists  came  to  New  England,  I  obtained 
at  once  a  famous  victory,  and  turned  the  laugh  decidedly  against  him. 

Yesterday  one  of  the  servants  of  the  library  came  to  my  room  with 
three  huge  quartos,  and  Prof.  Blumenbach's  compliments,  saying  they 


JR.  25.]  WOLF.  105 

were  too  large  to  bring  to  dinner,  and  therefore  he  sent  them  for  his 
own  justification,  with  marks  put  in  where  his  authorities  were  to  be 
found,  —  the  whole  of  which  were  manifest  falsehoods  or  exaggera 
tions  ;  but  they  served  him  as  sufficient  ground  for  crying  an  lo  tri- 
umphe  when  we  met  at  noon.  In  this  way  we  have  been  going  on  these 
ten  or  twelve  days,  and  I  suppose  shall  continue  to  go  on  so  till  the 
ladies  come  back  from  Ems  ;  so  that  you  see  I  am  not  likely  to  relapse 
into  low  spirits  for  want  of  gay  society  and  occasional  excitement. 

I  gave  Blumenbach,  some  time  since,  my  dear  father,  your  remem 
brance  and  your  acknowledgments  for  the  kindness  he  has  shown  me. 
The  old  gentleman  was  certainly  well  pleased  to  receive  such  a  saluta 
tion  from  such  a  distance ;  as  little  George  said,  mine  were  "  the 
farthest  and  longest  kisses  he  ever  had."  I  must  hasten  to  close  my 

letter.     All  well. 

GEO.  T. 

JOURNAL. 

GOTTINGEN,  September  12,  1816.  —  Within  the  last  three  days,  I 
have  seen  a  good  deal  of  Wolf,  the  corypheus  of  German  philolo 
gists,  who  is  here  on  a  visit,  for  the  purpose  of  seeing  the  library 

His  history  is  curious,  and  is  an  explanation  of  his  character.  He 
studied  here  when  he  was  very  poor  and  wretched,  and,  as  he  says  in 
some  of  his  publications,  ill-treated  by  Heyne.  His  first  occupation 
was,  I  think,  an  inferior  place  at  Ilfeld,  from  which  Heyne  caused 
him  to  be  expelled,  no  doubt  with  justice,  for  his  excesses.  He  then 
went  as  pro-rector  to  an  inconsiderable  gymnasium  at  Osterode,  in 
the  Hartz.  There  he  lived  for  some  time  unnoticed  and  unknown,  till 
he  attracted  attention  by  his  edition  of  Plato's  Symposium,  which  is 
the  more  extraordinary,  as  the  notes  are  in  German.  This  gave  him 
a  professorship  at  Halle,  to  whose  spirit  his  talents  and  temper  were 
adapted,  and  where  he  at  once  made  himself  a  name  and  influence. 
In  1795  he  published  his  Prolegomena  to  Homer,  —  one  of  the  most 
important  works  ever  written  on  a  philological  subject.  Then  fol 
lowed  his  bitter  contest  with  Heyne,  who  was  willing  to  claim  for  him 
self  a  part  of  the  honors  of  the  revolution  in  philology  which  this 
work  effected.  It  ended  with  the  triumph  of  Wolf,  though  in  the 
course  of  the  controversy  he  discovered  feelings  which  made  good 
men  regret  that  Heyne  should  have  been  defeated.  When  Heyne's 
Iliad  came  out,  in  1802,  Wolf  and  Voss  published  one  of  the  most  cruel 
and  scurrilous  reviews  of  it  that  ever  flowed  from  the  gall  of  offended 
pride,  to  which  Heyne  replied  by  a  vignette  in  his  Virgil  of  1806. 
After  this,  Wolf  seems  to  have  been  tolerably  quiet  at  Halle,  till  the 


106  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1816. 

change  was  made  by  the  French,  when  he  went  to  Berlin,  with  the 
title  of  "  Geheimerrath,"  and  a  salary  of  2,500  thalers  and  no  duties, 
and  now  lives  there,  in  his  old  age,  in  a  kind  of  otium  cum  dignitate, 
which  is  almost  singular  in  the  annals  of  German  universities,  and 
which  is  the  envy  of  his  coadjutors  and  rivals. 

As  a  man  of  letters  and  learning,  I  know  of  few  living  for  whom  I 
have  so  great  a  veneration  as  for  Wolf.  In  genius  he  surpasses,  per 
haps,  nearly  all  the  philologists  who  have  lived,  and  in  learning  and 
acuteness  is  behind  very  few.  A  genuine  laziness  and  love  of  ease, 
however,  have  prevented  him  from  publishing  much  ;  but  what  he  has 
published  has  become  a  canon,  —  as  his  text  of  Homer,  though  he  gives 
no  notes  to  support  his  alterations  ;  his  rules  of  criticism,  in  his  Prol 
egomena,  though  not  carried  out  and  exemplified  ;  his  editions  of 
Herodian,  and  of  the  Disp.  Tusculanae,  etc.,  etc.,  —  all  things  of  little 
compass,  but  pregnant  with  important  consequences  and  changes. 
....  His  course  for  Homer  was  commonly  attended  by  180  to  200, 
and  I  am  persuaded  that  very  few  professors,  in  any  faculty,  have 
delivered  so  great  a  variety  of  lectures  as  he  has,  with  such  skill, 
thoroughness,  and  success.  I  do  not  know  what  more  could  be  de 
sired  of  him,  but  that  he  should  nave  published  more,  and  should  not 
have  ceased  to  instruct. 

But  the  more  I  admire  him  as  a  scholar,  the  more  I  dislike  him  as 

a  man He  has  openly  quarrelled  with  most  of  his  friends  ;  he 

disgraced  himself  by  his  political  conduct  when  the  French  were  in 

Halle ;  and  he  has  sunk  from  all  respect  by  his  vices  in  old  age In 

intercourse  I  have  found  him  pleasant,  chiefly  from  his  boldness  and 
originality.  His  remarks  on  all  subjects  are  striking  and  often  new  ; 
he  is  arrogant  and  vain,  talks  much  of  himself,  and  repeated  to  me 
with  ill-concealed  satisfaction  a  remark  he  had  found  in  the  Classical 
Journal,  published  in  England,  that  they  knew  of  only  two  scholars 
now  on  the  Continent,  —  Wyttenbach  and  Wolf.  Of  his  enemies  he 
never  spoke,  unless  it  were  once  of  Voss,  whose  translation  of  Homer 
he  ridiculed ;  and,  though  by  a  strange  accident  I  walked  with  him  this 
afternoon  to  the  tomb  of  Heyne,  it  seemed  to  excite  in  him  no  feeling 
but  curiosity.  To  like  such  a  man  is  impossible  ;  but  as  a  matter 
of  curiosity  I  must  say  that,  during  the  last  three  days,  in  which  I 
have  been  often  and  long  with  him,  he  has  very  much  amused  me. 

DICTATED  IN  1854. 

When  I  was  in  Gottingen,  in  1816,  I  saw  Wolf,  the  most  distin 
guished  Greek  scholar  of  the  time.  He  could  also  lecture  extempora- 


M.  25.]  LEIPSIC.  107 

neously  in  Latin.  He  was  curious  about  this  country,  and  questioned 
me  about  our  scholars  and  the  amount  of  our  scholarship.  I  told  him 
what  I  could,  —  amongst  other  things,  of  a  fasliionable,  dashing 
preacher  of  New  York  having  told  me  that  he  took  great  pleasure  in 
reading  the  choruses  of  ^Eschylus,  and  that  he  read  them  without  a 
dictionary!  I  was  walking  with  Wolf  at  the  time,  and,  on  hearing 
this,  he  stopped,  squared  round,  and  said,  "  He  told  you  that,  did 
he  ?  "  "  Yes,"  I  answered.  "  Very  well  ;  the  next  time  you  hear  him 
say  it,  do  you  tell  him  he  lies,  and  that  I  say  so." 

When  I  went  from  Gottingen  to  Berlin,  Wolf  told  me  to  go  to  his 
house,  —  a  bachelor  establishment,  —  and  to  look  at  his  books.  I 
went,  and  amongst  many  interesting  things  happened  to  see  on  his 
working-table  a  Latin  and  German  lexicon,  which  I  knew  had  been 
out  but  five  years.  I  took  it  up,  wondering  what  such  a  scholar 
should  need  it  for,  and,  to  my  great  surprise,  found  it  much  worn  by 
use. 

During  a  six  weeks'  vacation,  Mr.  Ticknor  and  Mr.  Everett 
left  Gottingen,  September  13,  1816,  for  a  tour  in  the  North  of 
Germany,  visiting  all  the  principal  cities,  and  every  distinguished 
university  and  school,  whether  in  a  city  or  small  town ;  Mr. 
Ticknor  always  making  a  minute  study  of  them,  and  writing  full 
descriptions  of  them  in  his  journal.  He  devotes  nearly  a  volume 
of  it  to  Leipsic,  Dresden,  and  Berlin,  having  given  a  fortnight  to 
Dresden,  a  week  each  to  Leipsic  and  Berlin,  and  the  rest  of  the 
time  to  Wittenberg,  Halle,  Weimar,  Jena,  Gotha,  etc.  They  re 
turned  to  Gottingen,  November  5. 

To  EDWARD  T.  CHANNING. 

LETPSIC,  September,  17,  1816. 

....  Leipsic  is  a  very  remarkable  place,  and  presents  itself  to  every 
body  who  comes  with  a  judicious  acquaintance  with  it,  under  three 
distinct  forms,  —  a  city  associated  with  many  famous  recollections  in 
early  history,  and  the  Marathon  of  our  own  times,  where  the  inroads 
of  a  tumultuous  barbarism  were  finally  stopped ;  as  a  trading  city, 
for  its  size  the  most  important  in  Europe  ;  and  as  a  University,  one 
of  the  largest,  most  respectable,  and  ancient  in  the  world. 

The  second  is,  of  course,  the  aspect  in  which  it  is  first  seen  by  a 
stranger ;  and  I  assure  you,  when  I  came  again  into  the  crowded  streets 
and  noisy  population  of  a  commercial  city,  after  having  lived  an  entire 


108  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1816. 

year  in  the  silence  and  desolation  of  Gottingen,  I  felt  almost  as  I  did 
when  I  was  cast  among  the  multitudes  of  London,  or  as  Cato  did 
when  he  complained  of  the  magna  civitas,  magna  solitudo.  But  that, 
of  course,  is  wearing  off.  I  am  making  acquaintance  with  the  people 
attached  to  the  University,  and  thus  begin  to  forget  that  I  am  in  a 
trading  city,  to  whose-  semiannual  fair  twenty  thousand  strangers 

resort Among  the  great  men  of  the  University  whom  I  have 

seen,  are  Hermann,  whose  treatise  on  the  Metric  you  know,  I  suppose, 
about  as  well  as  I  do  Chitty's  treatise  on  Pleading,  and  Beck,  who 
is  as  familiar  to  you  in  his  capacity  of  editor  of  Euripides,  as  Pollux- 
fen  &  Co.  are  to  me  as  editors  of  Coke,  of  whom  I  now  recollect 
nothing  but  his  full-bottomed  wig  and  a  long  case  which  I  had  occa 
sion  to  look  up Hermann  and  Beck  are  good  men,  and  so  is 

Prof.  Schafer,  who  published  Herodotus,  though  he  is  obliged  to  sup 
port  himself  by  correcting  proof-sheets  of  books  he  ought  rather  to 
comment,  because  his  person  and  manner  are  not  sufficiently  interest 
ing  to  fill  his  auditorium  with  hearers  and  his  purse  with  Frederick 
d'ors.  En  passant,  I  will  tell  you  a  story  of  him.  You  know  Person 
is  the  god  of  idolatry  to  all  the  Hellenists  of  England,  great  and 
small,  whether  'ArriKwraro?,  like  Cicero's  instructor  in  rhetoric,  or 
Grceculi  esurientes,  like  Juvenal's,  poor  fellow  ! —  and  if  you  do  not,  you 
can  find  it  out  by  reading  a  Life  of  him  in  Aikin's  Athenaeum.  He  died 
one  day,  and  his  successor  in  Cambridge,  and  another  of  the  present 
generation  of  Greek  scholars  in  England,  who  are  no  more  like  Person 
than  the  degenerate  heroes  of  Virgil's  poetry  were  like  their  more 
fabulous  ancestors,  published  his  Remains  under  the  title  of  Adversa 
ria,  so  that  the  book  came  out  with  great  circumstance,  under  the 
authority,  as  it  were,  of  the  University  of  Cambridge.  The  book  was 
certainly,  for  a  collection  of  disconnected  critical  remarks,  a  good 
book,  and  Schafer  republished  it  here,  taking  the  liberty  to  correct 
some  mistakes  in  the  latiuity,  —  a  circumstance  which  he  very  mod 
estly  notices  in  his  preface.  This  was  a  tremendous  blow  to  the 
pride  of  the  English  scholars,  though  poor  Schafer,  who  had  been 
educated  in  the  German  notions  of  the  importance  of  an  exquisite  la- 
tinity,  thought  it  an  inconsiderable  oversight.  It  seemed  incredible 
to  the  classical  wits  at  Cambridge,  that  a  book  of  Porson's,  so  carefully 
and  so  often  revised  by  those  into  whose  hands  his  papers  came,  should 
contain  so  vulgar  a  fault  as  a  grammatical  error ;  and  Schaffer  was 
knocked  down  in  the  Cambridge  Review  very  unceremoniously  for  a 
calumniator  and  a  liar.  His  friends  immediately  wrote  to  him  to  defend 
himself,  but  he  simply  answered  that  quarrelling  was  not  a  branch  of  his 


M.  25.  THE  DRESDEN   MADONNA.  109 

professorship,  and  that  his  best  defence  would  be  a  collation  of  the  two 
editions  ;  though,  in  turning  over  the  leaves  of  his  English  copy,  he 
showed  us,  by  accident,  Chersonesus  used  as  a  feminine,  and  quern  as  a 
relative  consequent  to  cenotaphium,  which,  though  I  conceive  them  to 
be  no  disgrace  to  Porson,  and  little  to  his  publishers,  are  still  an  entire 

justification  of  all  Schaflfer  had  said  in  his  preface 

Farewell.  It  is  late,  and  I  am  tired,  as  I  always  am  in  a  strange 
place,  if  it  be  only  from  seeing  unwonted  objects  and  faces. 

Still  your  Yankee  friend, 

GEO. 

JOURNAL. 

September  22.  —  In  the  afternoon  we  went  through  the  gallery  of 
pictures  which  has  made  Dresden  so  famous  through  the  world ;  and, 
though  I  had  read  the  admiration  of  Lessing,  Herder,  and  Winckel- 
mann,  it  surpassed  my  expectations.  From  looking  at  a  collection  of 
above  thirteen  hundred  pieces  an  hour  or  two,  I  cannot  of  course  say 
anything  ;  but  of  the  effect  of  one  piece  on  my  unpractised  eye  I  can 
not  choose  but  speak,  for  I  would  not  willingly  lose  the  recollection 
of  what  I  now  feel.  I  mean  the  picture  called  the  Madonna  di  San 

Sisto I  had  often  heard  of  the  power  of  fine  paintings,  and  I 

knew  that  Raphael  was  commonly  reckoned  the  master  of  all  imita 
tion,  and  that  this  was  one  of  the  highest  efforts  of  his  skill ;  but  I  was 
not  prepared  for  such  a  vision.  I  did  not  before  imagine  it  had  been 
within  the  compass  of  human  talent  to  have  formed  a  countenance  of 
such  ideal  beauty  as  the  Madonna's,  on  which  a  smile  would  have 
seemed  earthly  and  unholy,  or  a  child  like  Jesus,  where  the  innocence 
of  infancy  is  consecrated  and  elevated,  but  not  marred  in  any  of  its 
natural  sweetness  and  fascination  by  the  inspiration  of  the  divinity 
which  beams  forth  in  the  mild  but  fixed  earnestness  of  his  looks.  I 
was  not  prepared  for  this,  for  I  had  never  before  seen  a  work  of  one 
of  the  great  masters  ;  and  even  now  that  I  have  felt  the  influence  of 
Raphael's  genius  descend  upon  me,  I  find  it  almost  impossible  to  be 
lieve  that  there  is  still  a  point  in  the  art  that  ought  to  produce  the 
effect  that  this  picture  produced  on  me  as  I  stood  before  it.  * 

BERLIN,  October  9,  1816. —I  dined  with  Mr.  Rose,  the  English 
minister,  and  a  considerable  party  of  strangers,  the  Bavarian  envoy, 
the  Count  de  Chastellux,  a  beautiful  English  lady  by  the  name  of 
Atterson,  etc.  Mr.  Rose  is  about  forty-five  or  fifty  years  old,  has 
long  been  in  the  English  diplomacy,  and  came  here  directly  from 

*  A  description  of  the  picture  is  omitted. 


110  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1816. 

Munich,  a  year  since,  where  he  has  been  minister  nearly  two  years. 
....  In  his  manners  he  is  more  American  and  democratic  than 
English,  and  even  in  his  dress  there  was  a  kind  of  popular  careless 
ness  which  does  not  belong  to  his  nation.  He  talks,  too,  without 
apparent  reserve  on  subjects  private  and  political,  said  a  great  deal  of 
his  mission  to  America,  pronounced  Jefferson  to  be  a  man  of  great 
talents  and  acuteness,  but  did  not  think  much  of  Madison,  spoke 
well  of  many  democrats  whom  he  thought  honest,  able  men,  etc.,  etc., 
and  in  general  seemed  to  understand  the  situation  of  the  politics  and 
parties  of  the  United  States  pretty  well,  though  his  mission  lasted 

only  five  months,  and  he  was  hardly  out  of  Washington Among 

other  things,  we  talked  of  Lord  Byron ;  and  he  mentioned  to  me  a 
circumstance  which  proves  what  I  have  always  believed,  —  that  Lord 
Byron's  personal  deformity  was  one  great  cause  of  his  melancholy  and 
misanthropy.  He  said  that  after  his  return  from  Greece,  Lord  Byron, 
in  one  of  his  fits  of  extravagance,  sat  up  all  night  with  a  friend  of  his 
own  character  in  a  London  coffee-house,  for  the  purpose  of  going 
early  in  the  morning  to  an  execution.  As  they  sallied  out,  a  woman 
stood  before  the  door,  whom  he  supposed  to  be  a  beggar,  and  so  gave 
her  money,  which  she  indignantly  rejected,  threw  back  upon  him, 
and,  with  much  other  vulgar  invective,  called  him  a  "  clump-footed 
devil."  They  went  on  to  the  execution,  waited  with  the  common 
crowd  for  their  miserable  amusement,  and  returned ;  but  Lord  Byron 
said  hardly  a  word  the  whole  time,  and  it  was  not  till  they  had  been 
an  hour  or  two  longer  together,  that  he  burst  out  into  a  violent  fit 
of  passionate  eloquence,  —  told  them  he  was  an  outcast  from  hu 
man  nature ;  that  he  had  a  seal  of  infamy  set  upon  him  more  dis 
tinct  than  that  of  Cain,  that  the  very  beggars  would  not  receive 
money  from  one  like  him,  etc. ;  showing  that  during  this  interval  of 
three  or  four  hours  he  had,  like  Tiberius,  kept  these  few  words  alta 
mente  reposta.  Mr.  Rose  added,  that  the  time  had  been  when  he 
might  have  been  cured  of  this  deformity,  which  arose  only  from  a 
weakness  in  the  joints,  but  that  he  was  too  impatient  to  submit  to  the 
tedious  and  painful  process  necessary,  and  that  his  misanthropy  is 
now  a  mixture  of  hatred  of  nature  and  himself  for  this  fault  of  his 
person,  added  to  a  general  satiety  of  all  extravagance  and  debauchery. 
HALLE,  October  19,  1816.  —  This  evening  we  passed  with  a  con 
siderable  party  at  the  house  of  Halle's  Magnus  Apollo,  Chancellor 
Niemeyer.  He  is  now,  I  imagine,  about  sixty-three  years  old,  and  — 
what  is  uncommon  among  German  men  of  letters  —  he  is  a  fine-look 
ing,  gentlemanly  man.  His  whole  career  has,  I  believe,  been  confined 


.£.25.]  PROFESSOR  SPRENGEL.  Ill 

to  Halle,  where  he  has  long  been  the  first  man,  head  of  all  their 
establishments,  ruler  of  the  University,  etc.,  etc.  In  1806,  he  was 
thought  by  the  French  a  man  of  so  much  consequence,  that  he  was 
one  of  the  six  whom  they  carried  off  to  France  as  hostages  for  this 
quarter  of  the  country,  and  he  remained  there  half  a  year.  During 
this  exile  he  became  acquainted  with  Jerome,  and  when  the  kingdom 
of  Westphalia  was  established,  obtained,  through  him,  indulgences 
for  Halle.  Jerome  had  confidence  in  him,  and  he  deserved  it,  not  by 
becoming  a  Frenchman,  but  by  remaining  faithful  to  the  University, 
and  desiring  nothing  but  its  good.  He  was,  therefore,  in  1808,  made 
chancellor  and  rector  perpetuus,  and  soon  after  knight  of  the  same 
order  that  Heyne  received.  The  last  honor,  of  course,  vanished  with 
the  Westphalian  dominion  ;  the  chancellorship  he  retains,  but  the 
rectorship  he  found  a  burden  too  great,  and  laid  it  down,  having 
borne  it  eight  years. 

The  party  at  his  house  was  pleasant,  and  its  tone  more  genteel  and 
sociable  than  at  Gottingen.  The  professors  who  were  there,  perhaps, 
less  learned,  and  more  polished  in  their  manners.  Among  them  was 
a  son  of  the  Chancellor,  formerly  professor  at  Marburg,  Gesenius,  au 
thor  of  the  Hebrew  lexicon,  Jakobs,  etc.  All  were  gay.  The  evening 
passed  off  lightly,  except  the  time  I  was  obliged  to  listen  in  polite 
silence  to  a  sonata  of  Mozart  twenty-four  pages  long  ;  the  supper  was 
better  than  German  suppers  are  wont  to  be. 

October  20.  —  I  called  this  morning  on  Prof.  Sprengel,  and  deliv 
ered  him  a  letter  from  Dr.  Miihlenburg  of  New  York,  with  a  small 
package  of  botanical  specimens.  He  seems  to  be  a  man  of  quick 
feelings,  and  it  was  almost  amusing  to  see  how  suddenly  he  passed 
from  tears  at  receiving  a  letter  from  one  he  loved,  who  had  so  long 
been  dead,  to  delight  at  receiving  so  many  curious  botanical  speci 
mens  which  he  had  never  seen  before When  he  had  got  partly 

through  his  delight  at  the  specimens,  he  asked  me  a  multitude  of 
questions  about  Dr.  Miihlenburg,  and  told  me  many  anecdotes  of  him, 
which  showed  how  true  his  feelings  were  to  the  memory  of  their 
early  friendship.  He  interested  me  more  than  German  scholars  com 
monly  do 

He  remains,  by  general  consent,  not  only  one  of  the  best  botanists 
in  Germany,  but  a  good  scholar,  and  an  interesting  and  amiable 
man 

In  the  course  of  the  forenoon,  we  visited  Prof.  Ersch,  the  libra 
rian,  who  has  shown  at  least  enormous  diligence  in  his  works  on 
German  literature  since  1750,  a  collection  of  titles  of  the  books, 


112  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1816. 

treatises,  pamphlets,  etc.,  published  during  this  period  in  Germany, 
making  twelve  octavo  volumes.  We  called,  too,  on  Prof.  Knapp,  the 
oldest  professor  in  this  University,  and  Director  of  the  Theological 
Seminary.  He  is  very  old.  He  is  also  at  the  head  of  the  missionary 
societies  in  this  quarter  of  Germany,  and  has  recently  written  for  one 
of  their  publications  a  short  but  interesting  history  of  missions. 
As  a  literary  man,  his  merit  is  his  Latin,  which  he  is  supposed  to 
write  and  speak  as  well  as  almost  any  man  of  his  time 

I  dined  with  Prof.  Sprengel.  The  dinner  was  poor,  —  such  an 
one,  perhaps,  as  few  German  professors  would  have  been  humble 
enough  to  have  asked  a  stranger  to  ;  but,  what  I  have  not  found 
before  in  a  single  instance,  he  made  no  apologies.  The  consequence 
was,  that  I  was  well  contented,  and  had  leisure  to  admire  the  extent 
of  his  literary  knowledge,  which,  without  the  least  show,  was  gradu 
ally  opened  to  me. 

After  dinner  he  carried  me  to  his  neighbor,  La  Fontaine's,  author 
of  a  great  number  of  romances,  one  of  which,  "  The  Village  Curate," 
has  been  republished  in  America.  He  is  sixty  or  sixty-five,  lives  very 
pleasantly  just  outside  the  town,  on  the  beautiful  banks  of  the  Saal. 
His  mode  of  life  is  rather  curious.  He  is  in  the  church,  but  his 
place  is  merely  nominal,  and  to  support  himself  in  living  as  he  likes 
he  writes.  This  he  does  not  find  pleasant,  and  therefore  writes  no 
more  than  is  necessary.  Twice  in  the  year  he  labors  night  and  day, 
produces  a  romance,  sells  it  to  the  booksellers,  and  from  the  profits  is 
able  to  have  for  the  remaining  five  months  the  comforts  and  luxuries 
he  desires.  I  found  him  with  Prof.  Niemeyer  ;  we  were  soon  joined 
by  Prof.  Ersch,  Prof.  Jakobs,  etc.  The  old  gentleman's  gay  volu 
bility,  which  indicated  his  literary  fertility,  kept  everybody  alive 
about  him,  and  we  passed  two  hours  in  a  rational  kind  of  happiness 
with  him 

In  the  evening  we  made  a  visit  to  old  Hofrath  Schurtz,  editor  of 
^Eschylus,  and  conductor,  for  I  know  not  how  many  years,  of  the 
Allgemeine  Literatur  Zeitung.  He  was  formerly  professor  at  Jena  ; 
he  is  now  above  seventy  years  old,  but  possesses  a  vivacity  remark 
able  even  in  a  German  man  of  letters.  In  good-nature  he  is  said  to 
surpass  all  his  contemporaries.  On  this  account,  as  Hermann  told 
us,  Wolf  could  never  get  along  with  him,  for  if  he  attacked  Schurtz 
in  conversation  for  any  opinion  whatever,  Schurtz  would  always  turn 
it  off  with  a  joke,  and  say  nobody  could  be  more  willing  to  give  up 
an  opinion  or  a  criticism  than  himself,  for  he  advanced  them  only  as 
specimens,  and  was  ready  to  abandon  them  to  their  fate.  This  is  true, 


M.  25.]  .   CHANCELLOR  NIEMEYER.  113 

as  any  one  may  see,  who  reads  the  notes  to  his  ^Eschylus,  where, 
with  learning  and  acuteness,  there  is  often  a  carelessness  which  is 
inexplicable,  without  this  key  to  his  character.  Yet  with  all  this 
levity  and  learning,  he  is  obliged  to  work  like  a  dog  :  he  reads  his 
lectures,  is  editing  Cicero,  conducts  the  Philological  Seminary,  su 
perintends  the  Journal,  and  from  all  these  together  is  obliged  to 
correct  fifteen  or  sixteen  proof-sheets  every  week.  And  yet  I  hardly 
know  any  young  man  of  five-and-twenty  that  is  more  amusing. 

I  went  to  the  Botanical  Garden  to  take  leave,  but  did  not  find  Prof. 
Sprengel,  who  gave  it  all  its  interest,  when  I  last  saw  it,  and  on 
my  way  home  visited  the  Halloren.  There  are  now  only  about  fifty 
families,  who  live  together,  and  earn  a  poor  subsistence  by  working 
in  a  salt-mine  here,  by  teaching  swimming,  showing  their  dexterity 
in  the  art  for  money,  and  by  catching  birds,  —  particularly  larks. 
They  are  curious  only  as  the  last  supposed  remains  of  the  ancient 
Wendish  nation,  who  have  preserved  their  dress  and  customs,  though 
not  their  language,  from  the  time  that  Charlemagne  transplanted  the 
Saxons  here,  and  thus  exterminated  gradually  this  rude  and  danger 
ous  people. 

The  evening  we  passed  at  the  Chancellor's,  with  his  family,  in  the 
usual  simple  gathering,  which  the  Germans  are  generally  too  proud 
to  permit  a  stranger  to  join.  His  children,  the  sons  with  their  wives, 
and  two  or  three  intimate  friends  pass  Monday  evening  with  him ; 
and  I  know  not  when  I  have  seen  anything  more  natural  and  re 
freshing.  The  girls  were  in  their  calico  dresses  and  colored  van- 
dykes,  seated  at  their  sewing  and  mending  ;  the  young  men  came  in 
their  frock-coats ;  and  the  Chancellor,  with  his  wife,  sat  in  homely 
simplicity  on  the  sofa,  and  enjoyed  the  circle  which  affection  had 
brought  about  them. 

At  eight  o'clock,  however,  I  took  leave  of  them,  and  went  with  the 
Chancellor  to  a  club  supper,  where  most  of  the  professors  meet  on 
Monday  evenings.  There  were  eighteen  or  twenty  present  this  even 
ing,  and  among  them  our  old  friend  Knapp,  Rudiger,  who  knows 
many  languages,  and  looks  like  a  raw  farmer  from  the  district  of 
Maine,  Voss,  Professor  of  History,  etc.  The  evening  passed  away 
pleasantly ;  there  was  little  eating  or  drinking,  but  much  amusing  con 
versation,  and  at  eleven  o'clock  everybody  went  home,  and  we  bade 
farewell  to  the  Chancellor  and  Halle. 

WEIMAR,  October  25.  —  We  sent  our  letters  to  Goethe  this  morn 
ing,  and  he  returned  for  answer  the  message  that  he  would  be  happy 
to  see  us  at  eleven  o'clock.  We  went  punctually,  and  he  was  ready  to 


114  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1S16. 

receive  us.  He  is  something  above  the  middle  size,  large  but  not 
gross,  with  gray  hair,  a  dark,  ruddy  complexion,  and  full,  rich,  black 
eyes,  which,  though  dimmed  by  age,  are  still  very  expressive.  His 
whole  countenance  is  old ;  and  though  his  features  are  quiet  and  com 
posed  they  bear  decided  traces  of  the  tumult  of  early  feeling  and 
passion.  Taken  together,  his  person  is  not  only  respectable,  but  im 
posing.  In  his  manners,  he  is  simple.  He  received  us  without  cere 
mony,  but  with  care  and  elegance,  and  made  no  German  compliments. 
The  conversation,  of  course,  rested  in  his  hands,  and  was  various. 
He  spoke  naturally  of  Wolf,  as  one  of  our  letters  was  from  him,  —  said 
he  was  a  very  great  man,  had  delivered  thirty-six  different  courses 
of  lectures  on  different  subjects  connected  with  the  study  of  antiquity, 
possessed  the  most  remarkable  memory  he  had  ever  known,  and 
in  genius  and  critical  skill  surpassed  all  the  scholars  of  his  time.  In 
alluding  to  his  last  publication,  he  said  he  had  written  his  "  Life  of 
Bentley  "  with  uncommon  talent,  because  in  doing  it  he  had  exhibited 
and  defended  his  own  character,  and  in  all  he  said  showed  that  he 
had  high  admiration  and  regard  for  him. 

Of  Lord  Byron,  he  spoke  with  interest  and  discrimination,  —  said 
that  his  poetry  showed  great  knowledge  of  human  nature  and  great 
talent  in  description  ;  Lara,  he  thought,  bordered  on  the  kingdom  of 
spectres  ;  and  of  his  late  separation  from  his  wife,  that,  in  its  circum 
stances  and  the  mystery  in  which  it  is  involved,  it  is  so  poetical,  that 
if  Lord  Byron  had  invented  it  he  could  hardly  have  had  a  more 
fortunate  subject  for  his  genius.  All  this  he  said  in  a  quiet,  simple 
manner,  which  would  have  surprised  me  much,  if  I  had  known  him 
only  through  his  books  ;  and  it  made  me  feel  how  bitter  must  have 
been  Jean  Paul's  disappointment,  who  came  to  him  expecting  to  find  in 
his  conversation  the  characteristics  of  Werther  and  Faust.  Once  his 
genius  kindled,  and  in  spite  of  himself  he  grew  almost  fervent  as  he 
deplored  the  want  of  extemporary  eloquence  in  Germany,  and  said, 
what  I  never  heard  before,  but  which  is  eminently  true,  that  the 
English  is  kept  a  much  more  living  language  by  its  influence.  "  Here," 
he  said,  we  have  no  eloquence,  —  our  preaching  is  a  monotonous, 
middling  declamation,  —  public  debate  we  have  not  at  all,  and  if  a 
little  inspiration  sometimes  comes  to  us  in  our  lecture- rooms,  it  is  out 
of  place,  for  eloquence  does  not  teach."  We  remained  with  him 
nearly  an  hour,  and  when  we  came  away  he  accompanied  us  as  far  as 
the  parlor  door  with  the  same  simplicity  with  which  he  received  us, 
without  any  German  congratulations. 

In  the  afternoon,  we  called  on  Prof.  Thiersch,  who  is  here  on  a 


M.  25.]  GOETHE.  115 

visit.  He  is  thirty-two,  and  is  one  of  the  rare  instances  of  a  peasant 
raising  himself  to  the  learned  rank  in  society.  He  was  sent  to  the 
"  Schule  Pforte "  by  a  village  which  had  this  right,  and  afterwards 
studied  at  Gottingen, —  was  an  instructor  in  the  gymnasium  there, 
and,  while  thus  employed,  attracted  the  attention  of  John  Miiller,  the 
historian,  who  said  of  Thiersch  and  Dissen,  who  were  then  not 
twenty-five  years  old,  that  if  the  art  of  studying  the  Greek  classics 
was  lost,  these  two  young  men  had  knowledge  enough  to  restore  it.  .... 

In  the  evening  he  took  us  to  the  house  of  a  friend,  Mr.  Von  Couta, 
a  councillor  of  state  ;  where  we  met  a  daughter  of  Herder,  a  cousin 
of  Klopstock  ;  Prof.  Hand,  the  editor  of  Lucretius,  a  young  man 
of  thirty-five  ;  and  Myer,  the  archaeologist,  now  Goethe's  intimate 
friend,  an  old  man  of  sixty  or  seventy,  short  and  fat,  with  very  odd 
manners,  but  lively  and  amusing  in  conversation. 

October  28.  —  Prof.  Biemer,  who  is  second  librarian  of  the  Public 
Library,  called  on  us  and  amused  us  above  an  hour,  by  describing 
Goethe's  mode  of  living,  peculiarities,  etc.,  —  facts  one  cannot  get  in 
books,  or  from  any  source  but  the  knowledge  of  an  intimate  acquaint 
ance.  Prof.  Kiemer  lived  nine  years  in  Goethe's  house,  and  knew  him, 
of  course,  from  the  lowest  note  to  the  top  of  his  compass.  He  said  that 
Goethe  is  a  much  greater  man  than  the  world  will  ever  know,  be 
cause  he  always  needs  excitement  and  collision  to  rouse  him  to  exertion, 
and  that  it  is  a  great  misfortune  that  he  is  now  without  such  influ 
ence  and  example  as  when  Herder,  Wieland,  and  Schiller  were  alive. 

I  asked  what  had  been  his  relations  with  those  extraordinary  men. 
He  replied  that,  from  holding  similar  views  in  philosophy,  Goethe 
and  Schiller  were  nearest  to  each  other,  and  Herder  and  Wieland  ;  but 
that  after  the  deaths  of  Schiller  and  Herder,  Goethe  became  intimate 
with  Wieland.  Schiller,  he  said,  had  profited  much  by  his  connection 
with  Goethe,  and  borrowed  much  from  his  genius,  —  among  other 
pieces,  in  his  William  Tell,  which  Goethe  had  earlier  thought  to  have 
made  the  subject  of  an  epic  poem ;  but  now  they  are  all  dead,  and 
since  1813  Goethe  has  been  alone  in  the  world. 

He  has  much  on  paper  which  has  never  been  published,  and  much 
in  his  memory  which  has  not  been  put  on  paper,  for  he  writes  always 
by  an  amanuensis,  to  whom  he  dictates  from  memoranda  on  a  card  or 
scrap  of  paper,  as  he  walks  up  and  down  his  room.  Of  his  views  in 
physics  and  comparative  anatomy,  he  has  published  little,  but  a 
programme  by  a  medical  professor  at  Jena  (Oken)  has  lately  made  a 
great  noise,  in  which  the  doctrine  that  the  brain  is  formed  from  the 
medulla  spinalis  was,  no  doubt,  from  hints  first  given  by  Goethe. 


116  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1816. 

Among  the  many  unpublished  things  he  has  on  hand,  are  parts  of  a 
continuation  of  Faust,  which  Kiemer  had  seen,  in  which  the  Devil 
brings  Faust  to  court  and  makes  him  a  great  man  ;  and  some  poems 
in  the  Persian  style  and  taste  which  he  wrote  during  the  last  war,  to 
give  a  relief  to  his  imagination  and  feelings  by  employing  himself 
on  something  that  had  no  connection  with  Europe. 

He  lives  now,  in  his  old  age,  in  unconsoled  solitude  ;  sees  almost 
nobody,  and  rarely  goes  out.  His  enjoyment  of  life  seems  gone,  his 
inclination  for  exertion  gone,  and  nothing  remains  to  him,  that  I  can 
see,  but  a  very  few  years  of  cold  and  unsatisfied  retirement. 


To  ELISHA  TICKNOR. 

GOTTINGEN,  November  9, 1816. 

Once  more,  dear  father  and  mother,  I  date  to  you  from  Gottingen, 
but  from  Gottingen  how  changed  !  Five  days  ago  we  arrived  here, 
after  an  absence  of  eight  weeks.  As  I  entered  the  city,  I  felt  in  some 
sort  as  if  I  were  returning  home,  for  I  knew  that  I  was  returning  to 
that  quiet  occupation  which  in  Europe  is  my  only  happiness  ;  but  I 
did  not  dream  of  what  awaited  me.  I  sprang  from  the  carriage  to  go 
to  my  room,  but  was  stopped  by  an  Irishman  of  the  name  of  Orr,  who 
studies  here,  with  the  question,  "  Do  you  know  two  of  your  countrymen 
are  here  ? "  "  Is  it  Cogswell  1 "  said  I,  involuntarily  ;  not  because  I 
trusted  myself  to  hope  it,  but  because  it  was  what  I  desired  beyond 
anything  else  in  the  compass  of  possibility. 

In  a  moment  I  was  with  him,  at  "  The  Crown  "  ;  and  though  I  had 
not  been  in  bed  for  thirty-six  hours,  I  did  not  get  to  my  room  till 

midnight And  yet,  when  I  have  been  alone,  I  have  had 

enough  to  think  of.*  ....  I  have  thought  seriously  and  thoroughly, 
and  the  state  of  the  case  is  such  that  the  final  decision  must  rest  with 
you,  for  the  three  difficult  points  are  more  your  affair,  my  dear 
father,  than  mine. 

The  first  is,  the  amount  of  compensation  offered  to  me.  This  is  a 
salary  of  $>  1,000  and  fees,  which,  from  the  present  state  of  literature 
among  us,  cannot  in  twenty  years  exceed  from  $  300  to  $  500  more ; 
so  that  from  the  professorship  I  cannot  expect  above  $  1,300,  or  at 
most  $  1,500  a  year.  This  is  enough  for  me,  as  long  as  I  continue 
unmarried,  and  I  could  live  upon  it  as  contentedly  as  upon  $  10,000 
a  year  ;  but  I  am  now  making  an  arrangement  for  life  ;  and,  though  I 

*  The  first  announcement  of  his  nomination  to  be  professor  at  Cambridge. 


M.  25.]  THE  CAMBRIDGE  PROFESSORSHIP.  117 

assure  you  my  hopes  have  not  fixed  on  any  particular  person,  yet  I 
know  very  well  that  in  any  country,  and  most  of  all  in  America, 
marriage  is  a  sine  qua  non  to  happiness,  and  that  there  are  not  many 
persons  to  whom  it  would  be  more  necessary  than  to  me.  This, 
then,  is  the  condition  to  which  I  ought  to  look  forward  ;  but  for  this 
the  professorship  is  no  sufficient  provision.  I  cannot,  therefore,  ac 
cept  it,  unless  you  are  able  and  willing  to  make  up  the  income  to  the 
amount  necessary  to  support  a  family. 

The  second  point  is,  the  Spanish  part.  Here  is  at  once  a  new 
subject  of  study  proposed  to  me,  to  which  I  have  paid  no  attention 
since  I  have  been  here,  and  which  I  have  not  taken  into  the  plan  of 
my  studies  and  travels  in  Europe.  If  I  am  to  be  a  professor  in  this 
literature,  I  must  go  to  Spain ;  and  this  I  cannot  think  of  doing,  with 
out  your  full  and  free  consent.  This  winter  I  must  remain  here,  of 
course  ;  the  next  summer  I  must  be  in  France,  and  the  next  winter 
in  Italy.  I  willingly  give  up  Greece,  but  still  I  find  no  room  for 
Spain.  If  I  go  there  as  soon  as  the  spring  will  make  it  proper,  in 
1818,  and  establish  myself  at  the  University  of  Salamanca,  and  stay 
there  six  months,  which  is  the  shortest  time  in  which  I  could  possibly 
get  a  suitable  knowledge  of  Spanish  literature,  my  whole  time  will 
be  absorbed,  and  England  and  Scotland  will  be  sacrificed.  This  last 
I  ought  not  to  do ;  and  yet,  the  thought  of  staying  six  months  longer 
from  home  is  absolutely  intolerable  to  me.  If  it  comes  to  my  mind 
when  I  sit  down  to  dinner,  my  appetite  is  gone ;  or  when  I  am  going 
to  bed,  I  get  no  sleep.  Yet,  if  I  take  this  place,  I  must  do  it,  and  I 
do  not  question  I  could  carry  it  properly  through  ;  for,  after  the  last 
six  months  here,  I  do  not  fear  anything  in  this  way  ;  or  at  least 
ought  not  to  ;  but  are  you  willing  1  Without  your  consent,  I  will 
not  for  an  instant  think  of  it.  . 

Finally,  are  you  satisfied  with  the  office  and  the  occupation  ?  For 
myself,  I  say  freely,  that  the  occupation  would  be  pleasant  to  me,  and 
that  I  doubt  not,  in  this  office,  I  could,  better  than  in  any  other,  ful 
fil  my  duties  to  God  and  my  neighbor  ;  but  still,  if  you  be  not  satis 
fied,  I  do  not  desire  it. 

The  case,  then,  stands  precisely  thus  :  you,  my  dear  father,  have 
done  so  much  for  me,  and  have  made  so  many  sacrifices  for  me,  that 
I  have  no  other  wish  than  so  to  spend  the  remainder  of  the  time  we 
may  live  together  in  the  world  as  will  most  promote  your  happiness 
and  my  mother's.  An  offer  is  made  to  me  of  an  establishment  for 
life,  which  necessarily  implies  farther  exertions  and  sacrifices  on  your 
part.  I  do  not  ask  them,  I  do  not  desire  them.  I  can  live  happy 


118  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.-  [1816. 

with  you  at  home,  and  easily  earn  in  some  other  way  the  support 
that  may  be  necessary  for  me.  If,  however,  you,  of  your  own  ac 
cord,  desire  me  to  accept  this  office,  and  smilingly  make  the  sacrifices 
that  are  necessary  to  it ;  if  you  are  disposed  to  add  to  the  income 
what  is  necessary  to  support  a  family ;  if  you  are  disposed  to  have 
me  yet  another  half-year  absent,  so  as  to  make  in  all  four  years  ; 
and,  finally,  if  you  are  willing  that  I  should  live  separated  from  you 
the  greater  part  of  the  year, — I  will  accept.  I  send  you,  therefore,  two 
letters  for  the  President :  one  affirmative,  one  negative.  Choose, 
dear  father  and  mother,  whichever  you  please,  and  be  assured  your 
choice  will  make  me  happy. 

If  you  had  mentioned  the  subject  in  your  letters,  or  if  from  Cogs 
well  I  could  have  gained  a  hint  of  your  wishes,  I  should  have  sent 
but  one  of  them.  As  it  is,  your  decision  cannot  be  difficult,  since  in 
either  case  it  must  be  proper. 

Your  affectionate  child, 

GEORGE  TICKNOR. 

To  EDWARD  T.  CHANNING. 

GOTTDIGEN,  November  16, 1816. 

Two  months  ago,  my  dear  Edward,  I  wrote  you  from  Leipsic,  and  on 
my  return  here  found  your  letters  of  August  9th  and  September  14th. 
I  thank  you  for  them,  as  I  do  in  my  heart  for  all  your  letters,  and  read 
them  with  grateful  pleasure  throughout,  even  that  part  of  your  last 
in  which  you  abuse  the  German  literature.  You  must,  however,  per 
mit  me  to  answer  this.  "  I  am  an  elder  soldier,  not  a  better,"  and 
may  claim  to  be  heard  on  the  ground  of  experience,  if  not  of  dis 
interestedness.  If  anybody  chooses  to  say  the  literature  of  Germany 
is  poor,  feeble,  good  for  nothing,  etc.,  I  have  no  disposition  to  dis 
turb  him  in  his  opinion,  —  chacun  a  son  gotit.  He  cannot  enjoy  what 
I  can,  —  and  I,  on  the  other  hand,  no  doubt,  am  incapable  of  some 
pleasures  which  he  perceives.  But  when  a  man  comes  out  like  the 
author  of  a  "  Review  of  Goethe's  Life,"  and  says  Schiller  is  the  first 
genius  Germany  has  produced,  or,  like  yourself,  that  German  poetry 
is  obscure,  artificial,  etc.,  I  am  bold  to  say,  with  all  due  respect,  the 
man  knows  nothing  about  the  matter.  Again,  if  a  man  says,  "  I  am 
going  to  give  an  account  of  Goethe's  life,  as  he  himself  represents  it," 
and  then  draws  a  caricature  of  it,  as  is  done  by  the  Edinburgh  Review,  I 
say  he  is  dishonest,  without  entering  into  the  question  whether  the  book 
is  defensible.  Or,  if,  like  the  author  of  the  "  Review  of  the  Ancient 
German  Poetry,"  he  says,  Bouterweck'a  book  on  this  subject  is  indiffer- 


M.  25.]  GERMAN   LITERATURE.  119 

ent,  I  reply,  without  inquiring  whether  the  judgment  be  accidentally 
right  or  not,  that  the  man  is  a  scoundrel,  for  every  fact  and  every  opin 
ion  in  his  Review  is  pilfered  from  this  very  book,  and  he  evidently 
knows  nothing  of  the  early  history  .of  German  literature  which  he  has 
not  found  in  it.  Yet  this  is  the  way  the  Germans  are  every  day  judged 
by  foreign  nations.  Fortunately,  however,  the  grounds  of  accusation 
are  so  different  that  all  cannot  be  true,  and  their  incoherence  and  in 
consistency  are  the  best  possible  testimony  to  the  ignorance  of  the  per 
sons  who  make  them. 

To-day  comes  a  Frenchman,  and  cries  out,  like  Bonaparte,  against 
the  "  metaphysique  tenebreuse  du  Nord  " ;  to-morrow  comes  another 
Frenchman,  like  Villers,  and  says  he  will  build  a  bridge  that  shall 
conduct  the  empirics  of  France  to  the  simplicity  of  German  philoso 
phy.  Mad.  de  Stae'l  complains  of  Goethe's  tragedies  for  being  too  sim 
ple,  and  the  Edinburgh  Reviewers  complain  of  them  for  being  too  arti 
ficial,  You  praise  the  Village  Pastor,  whose  name  I  have  never  heard 
in  Germany,  except  when  I  have  inquired  about  it.  The  critics  of 
the  North  say  the  reading  of  Schiller's  Robbers  makes  an  epoch  in 
every  man's  life  ;  from  which  remark,  it  is  apparent  the  innocent  do  not 
know  that,  though  Schiller's  countrymen  are  aware  of  the  strength  of 
character  and  talent  which  were  necessary  to  produce  in  his  circum 
stances,  and  the  circumstances  of  the  country,  such  a  tragedy  as  the 
"  Robbers  "  at  the  age  of  twenty-one,  yet  that  their  good  sense  and  good 
taste  have  banished  it  long,  long  since  from  the  stage,  and  ceased  to  read 
it  except  as  a  curious  proof  of  misdirected  genius,  though  it  is  now  do 
mesticated  in  the  English  theatres. 

Perhaps  you  will  ask  what  I  mean  by  all  this  tirade  against  other 
people's  mistakes.  I  mean  to  show  you  by  foreign  proof  that  the 
German  literature  is  a  peculiar  national  literature,  which,  like  the 
miraculous  creation  of  Deucalion,  has  sprung  directly  from  their  own 
soil,  and  is  so  intimately  connected  with  their  character,  that  it  is  very 
difficult  for  a  stranger  to  understand  it.  A  Frenchman,  or  indeed 
any  one  of  the  Roman  nations,  generally  makes  as  bad  work  with  it  as 
Voltaire  with  Shakespeare,  and  for  the  same  reasons  ;  for  it  deals  with 
a  class  of  feelings  and  ideas  which  are  entirely  without  the  periphery 
of  his  conceptions.  An  Englishman,  too,  if  he  studies  it  at  home  only, 
generally  succeeds  about  as  well,  —  but  show  me  the  man  who,  like 
Walter  Scott,  has  studied  it  as  it  deserves,  or,  like  Coleridge,  has 
been  in  the  country,  and  who  has  gone  home  and  laughed  at  it.  Mr. 
Rose,  in  Berlin,  told  me  he  would  defy  all  the  critics  of  his  nation  to 
produce  such  an  instance. 


120  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1816. 

After  all,  however,  you  will  come  round  upon  me  with  the  old 
question,  "  And  what  are  your  Germans,  after  all  ? "  They  are  a 
people  who,  in  forty  years,  have  created  to  themselves  a  literature 
such  as  no  other  nation  ever  created  in  two  centuries  ;  and  they  are  a 
people  who,  at  this  moment,  have  more  mental  activity  than  any  other 
existing.  I  have  no  disposition  to  conceal  that  this  literature  has 
many  faults  ;  but  if  you  had  read  Goethe's  Tasso,  or  his  Iphigenia,  or 
his  ballads,  you  would  never  have  said  their  poetry  lacks  sim 
plicity  ;  or  if  you  had  read  the  tales  of  Musaeus,  or  Wieland's 
Oberon,  —  even  in  Sotheby,  —  or  fifty  other  things,  you  would  not 
have  said  "  the  Germans  do  not  know  how  to  tell  stories."  I  am 
not  at  all  disposed  to  conceal  from  you  that  this  mental  activity  is  in 
my  opinion  very  often  misdirected  and  unenlightened,  —  but,  even 
when  in  error,  you  see  that  it  is  the  dark  gropings  of  Polyphemus 
round  his  cave,  and  that  when  such  ponderous  strength  comes  to  the 
light,  it  will  leave  no  common  monuments  of  its  power  and  success 
behind  it. 

So  much  for  Germany,  —  a  subject  upon  which  I  will  thank  you 
not  to  set  me  going  again,  for  I  do  not  know  well  when  to  stop,  and 
have  not  time  to  run  on.  ....  FarewelL  My  respects  to  your  mother. 

GEORGE. 

The  subject  of  the  professorship  at  Harvard  College,  opened 
in  the  letter  to  his  father,  but  left  unmentioned  in  this  later  one 
to  Mr.  Charming,  was  henceforward  an  important  element  in 
Mr.  Ticknor's  thoughts  and  plans.  It  was  under  discussion  for 
a  year,  as  the  length  of  time  necessary  for  receiving  ansAvers  to 
questions  and  propositions  made  on  opposite  sides  of  the  At 
lantic  prolonged  the  period  of  uncertainty.  It  will  not  appear 
again  in  these  pages  till  after  his  return  to  America.  His  ac 
ceptance  of  the  place  which  he  was  asked  to  fill  was  written  by 
him  in  Eoine,  and  is  dated  November  6,  1817. 


25.]  GOTTINGEN.  121 


CHAPTEE   VI. 

Mr.  Ticknor  leaves  Gottingen.  —  Frankfort.  —  Fr.  von  Schlegel.  —  Voss. 
—  Creuzer.  —  Arrival  in  Paris  and  residence  there.  —  A.  W.  von  Schle 
gel.  —  Duke  and  Duchess  de  Broglie.  —  Humboldt.  —  Helen  Maria 
Williams.  —  Madame  de  Stael.  —  Say.  —  Benjamin  Constant.  — 
Southey.  —  Madame  Be'camier.  —  Chateaubriand.  —  Adventure  with 
the  Police.  —  Marshal  Davoust.  —  Visit  to  Draveil. 

JOUKNAL. 

OTTINGEN,  March  26,  1817.  — Yesterday  I  went  round  and 
took  leave  of  all  my  acquaintances  and  friends.  From  many  I 
did  not  separate  without  a  feeling  of  deep  and  bitter  regret,  which  I 
never  thought  to  have  suffered  on  leaving  Gottingeu.  From  Eichhorn, 
whose  open-hearted  kindness  has  always  been  ready  to  assist  me ; 
from  Dissfin,  whose  daily  intercourse  and  conversation  have  so  much 
instructed  me ;  from  the  Sartorius  family,  where  I  have  been  partly 
at  home,  because  there  is  more  domestic  feeling  and  happiness  there 
than  anywhere  else  in  Gottingen,  and  where  the  children  wept  on 
bidding  me  good  by ;  from  Schultze,  whose  failing  health  will  not 
permit  me  to  hope  to  receive  even  happy  news  from  him ;  .  .  .  .  and 
above  all  from  Blumenbach,  ante  alios  omnes  praestantissimus,  but 
whose  health  and  faculties  begin  to  feel  the  heavy  hand  of  age,  —  from 
all  these  and  from  many  others  I  separated  myself  with  a  regret  which 
made  my  departure  from  Gottingen  this  morning  an  hour  of  sadness 
and  depression. 

At  Cassel  I  stopped  a  few  hours,  and  Prof.  Welcker,  who  makes 
part  of  my  journey  with  me,  carried  me  to  see  Volkel,  —  a  man  who 
has  made  himself  rather  famous  by  a  treatise  on  the  Olympian  Jupiter, 
and  by  a  little  volume,  published  1808,  on  the  plundering  Greece  of 
its  works  of  art,  just  at  the  time  Bonaparte  had  taken  everything  of 

this  kind  from  Germany  to  Paris On  returning  to  our  lodgings, 

I  took  leave  of  Everett  and  Stephen  Perkins,  who  had  accompanied 
me  thus  far,  and  in  the  evening  came  on  a  few  English  miles  to  an 
ordinary  inn. 

VOL.  i.  6 


122  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1817. 

FRANKFORT,  March  29.  —  The  first  person  I  went  to  see  this  after 
noon  was  Frederick  von  Schlegel,  and  never  was  I  more  disappointed  in 
the  external  appearance  of  any  man  in  my  life  ;  for,  instead  of  finding 
one  grown  spare  and  dry  with  deep  and  wearisome  study,  I  found 
before  me  a  short,  thick,  little  gentleman,  with  the  ruddy,  vulgar  health 
of  a  full-fed  father  of  the  Church.  On  sitting  with  him  an  hour, 
however,  I  became  reconciled  to  this  strange  discrepancy,  or  rather 
entirely  forgot  it,  for  so  fine  a  flow  of  rich  talk  I  have  rarely  heard  in 
Germany.  Luden  of  Jena  and  Schlegel  are  the  only  men  who  have 
reminded  me  of  the  genuine,  hearty  flow  of  English  conversation. 

The  evening  I  spent  at  President  von  Berg's,  —  a  man  who  was  an 
important  member  of  the  Congress  of  Vienna,  and  is  now  an  impor 
tant  member  of  the  Diet  here,  representing  many  small  principalities, 
Oldenburg,  Nassau,  etc.,  uniting  in  himself  six  votes.  There  was  a 
large  company  there,  —  the  French  Minister  and  the  Saxon,  but 
above  all,  Frederick  Schlegel,  who  was  very  gay,  and  talked  with  much 
spirit  and  effect  upon  a  variety  of  subjects,  chiefly  literary  and  po 
litical. 

Berg  is  a  man  of  extensive  knowledge,  and  knows  more  of  the  minute 
history  of  our  Kevolution  than  anybody  I  have  seen  in  Germany. 
Learning  I  was  from  Boston,  he  told  his  wife  to  give  me  a  very  poor 
cup  of  tea,  if  indeed  she  would  give  me  any  at  all ;  for  that  in  Boston 
we  once  rebelliously  wasted  and  destroyed  several  cargoes  of  it.  He 
talked  only  on  political  subjects. 

March  31.  —  I  dined  with  Beauvillers,  a  rich  banker,  with  a  party 
of  eighteen  or  twenty  merchants,  many  of  them  foreigners  who  have 
come  to  the  fair  now  going  on  here.  My  chief  amusement  was  to 
observe  how  exactly  these  people  from  Vienna,  Hamburg,  Konigsberg, 
and  Trieste,  are  like  the  merchants  in  Amsterdam,  London,  and 
Boston,  and  to  listen  to  their  comical  abuse,  which  all  true  Frank- 
forters  poured  out  against  the  Diet,  its  members,  their  operations,  pride, 
etc.,  etc. 

I  passed  an  extremely  pleasant  evening  at  Senator  Smidt's,  a  man 
of  talent,  Ambassador  from  Bremen,  with  much  influence  in  the 
Bundestag.  There  was  a  large  supper-party,  consisting  of  Count 
Goltz,  the  Prussian  Ambassador,  the  Darmstadt  Minister,  Baron 
Gagern,  the  Minister  of  the  King  of  Holland  for  Luxembourg,  —  the 
most  eloquent  member  of  the  Diet,  and  one  whose  influence  over  pub 
lic  opinion  is  probably  greater  than  that  of  any  other,  and  his  influ 
ence  over  the  Diet  as  great  as  anybody's,  —  Frederick  von  Schlegel, 
again  to  my  great  satisfaction,  etc.,  etc.  Baron  Gagern  reminded  me 


JE.  25.]  SENATOR   SMIDT.  123 

of  Jeremiah  Mason,*  for,  the  moment  I  entered  the  room,  he  came  up 
to  me  and  began  to  question  me  about  my  country,  —  its  great  men, 
etc.,  like  a  witness  oh  the  stand,  till  I  began  to  feel  almost  uncomfort 
able  at  this  kind  of  interlocutory  thumb-screwing  ;  but  when  he  had 
learned  all  he  wanted  to,  —  and  his  questions  were  very  shrewd,  and 
showed  he  knew  what  he  was  about,  —  I  found  him  an  extremely 
pleasant,  instructive  man,  a  true  German,  full  of  enthusiasm  and 
hope,  and  trusting,  as  it  seems  to  me,  too  much  to  the  present  flattering 
prospects  of  a  more  intimate  union  and  consolidation  of  these  inde 
pendent  and  discordant  principalities. 

He  told  me  many  curious  ancedotes,  and,  among  the  rest,  one  of  his 
being  present  at  a  levee  of  Bonaparte's  where  our  minister,  Living 
ston,  was  so  ignorant  of  all  proprieties  as  to  ask  the  Emperor 
whether  he  had  received,  good  news  from  St.  Domingo  ktely,  • —  at  a 
time  when  everything  had  gone  by  the  board  there  ;  of  his  having 
seen  a  letter  from  Napoleon  to  Jerome,  when  he  was  King  of  West 
phalia,  beginning,  "  Mon  frere,  tu  ne  cesses  pas  d'etre  poli&son,"  etc. 

Smidt  told  me  that  when  the  Crown  Prince  was  in  Bremen,  he  told 
him,  that  when  Napoleon  sent  Le  Clerc  to  St.  Domingo  (who  died 
soon  after  his  arrival),  he  sent  him  not  only  for  the  purpose  of  sub 
duing  and  governing  that  island,  but  also  with  regular  instructions 
and  plans  for  extending  his  influence  and  power  to  the  United  States, 
and  named,  at  the  same  time,  four  persons  in  France  and  one  in 
America  who  were  privy  to  the  design,  all  of  whose  names  Mr.  Smidt 
had  forgotten,  excepting  that  of  Talleyrand. 

The  conversation,  however,  was  not  wholly  political,  as  there  were  a 
number  of  ladies  in  the  party  ;  and,  besides,  Frederick  Schlegel's 
good-nature,  literature,  and  wit  would  have  anywhere  formed  a  coun- 

*  Mr.  Ticknor,  on  a  visit  to  Portsmouth,  New  Hampshire,  before  he  went  to 
Europe,  carried  a  letter  of  introduction  to  Mr.  Jeremiah  Mason,  a  distinguished 
lawyer  of  that  city,  and  was  invited  to  tea.  Mr.  Mason  asked  him  endless 
questions,  and  he  grew  so  tired  and  vexed  that,  as  he  left  the  house,  he  said  to 
himself  that  he  would  never  pass  through  that  man's  door  again.  The  next 
day,  he  met  Mr.  Mason  at  dinner  at  Mr.  Webster's,  when  the  style  of  address 
was  quite  changed,  and  he  never  after  regretted  knowing  Mr.  Mason.  During 
Mr.  Ticknor's  absence  in  Europe,  his  journal  was  for  a  time  in  the  hands  of  his 
friend,  Mr.  N.  A.  Haven,  of  Portsmouth.  Mr.  Mason  insisted  on  seeing  it.  The 
passage  above,  comparing  Baron  Gagern  to  Mr.  Mason  in  his  style  of  question 
ing,  met  his  eye.  Years  afterwards,  when  acquaintance  had  grown  to  friendship, 
Mr.  Mason  mentioned  that  he  had  read  that  passage,  which  drew  forth  a  con 
fession  about  the  first  call,  and  Mr.  Mason  replied  that  he  always  questioned 
young  men  so. 


124  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1817. 

terpoise  for  the  spirit  of  diplomacy  ;  so  that,  on  the  whole,  it  was  one  of 
the  pleasantest  evenings  I  have  passed  in  Germany. 

April  1.  —  Before  leaving  Gottingen  I  had  made  an  arrangement 
with  Hofrath  Falcke,  member  of  the  Chancery  at  Hanover,  to  travel 
with  him  from  Frankfort  to  Paris.  This  morning,  therefore,  we  set 

out,  and  came  to  Darmstadt This  afternoon  I  went  to  see  Mol- 

ler,  the  famous  architect He  showed  me  a  great  number  of  his 

own  architectural  drawings,  particularly  one  of  the  interior  of  the 
cathedral  at  Cologne,  as  it  should  have  been  finished,  and  one  of 
the  wonderful  cathedral  at  Strasburg,  which  were  fine,  but  were  by 
no  means  so  interesting  as  an  immense  plan  of  the  steeple  of  Cologne 
Cathedral,  which  extended  across  the  room,  and  is  the  original  draw 
ing,  made  1240,  on  parchment,  and  came  accidentally  into  his  hands, 
after  having  been  plundered  from  the  archives  by  the  French.  He 
himself  was  no  less  interesting  by  his  simplicity  and  enthusiasm, 
than  his  drawings  were  by  their  beauty  and  skill. 

HEIDELBERG,  April  2.  —  As  soon  as  we  had  dined,  I  went  to  see  the 
elder  Voss,  —  now  an  old  man  between  sixty  and  seventy,  —  tall,  mea 
gre,  and  beginning  to  be  decrepit.  Unlike  most  German  men  of  let 
ters,  I  found  everything  about  him  neat,  and  in  some  points  approach 
ing  to  elegance,  though  without  ever  exceeding  the  limits  of  simplicity. 
He  received  me  with  an  open  kindness,  which  was  itself  hospitality, 
and,  after  sitting  with  him  ten  minutes,  I  was  at  home. 

He  described  to  me  his  present  mode  of  life,  said  he  rose  early  and 
went  to  bed  early,  and  divided  the  day  between  his  garden,  his  books, 
his  wife,  and  his  harpsichord.  Thus,  he  says,  he  preserves  in  his  old  age 
the  lightness  of  heart  which  God  gave  him  in  his  youth.  At  Eutin,  he 
told  me,  where  he  lived  a  long  time,  he  was  poor,  and  when,  at  the  end 
of  the  second  year  after  his  marriage,  they  struck  the  balance  of  their 
accounts,  he  found  they  were  considerably  deficient ;  "  and  so,"  he  add 
ed  with  touching  simplicity,  "  we  gave  up  our  Sunday's  glass  of  wine 
and  struck  coffee  out  of  our  luxuries,  and  did  it  too  without  regret, 
for  we  were  young  then  ;  and  God  has  given  my  wife,  as  you  will  see 
when  you  know  her,  a  heart  no  less  happy  and  light  than  mine."  He 
showed  me  his  library,  not  large,  but  choice  and  neatly  arranged,  .... 
his  manuscripts  all  in  the  same  form Among  them  was  his  trans 
lation  of  Aristophanes,  —  written,  as  he  himself  confessed,  because 
Wolf  had  undertaken  the  Clouds,  —  and  six  plays  of  Shakespeare,  in 
which,  he  said,  he  intended  to  avoid  Schlegel's  stiffness,  but  will  not, 
I  think,  succeed.  Of  his  "  Louise"  he  told  me  it  was  written  in  1785, 
but  not  printed  till  ten  years  after  ;  and,  on  my  remarking  that  there 


M.  25.]  CREUZER.  125 

was  a  vivacity  and  freshness  about  many  parts  of  it  that  made  me 
feel  as  if  it  were  partly  taken  from  life,  he  confessed  that  he  had 
intended  the  character  of  the  old  pastor  for  a  portrait  of  his  wife's 
father,  Boier. 

When  we  entered  his  parlor  again,  I  was  struck  with  the  picture  of 
a  beautiful  lady.  On  asking  whose  likeness  it  was,  the  tears  started 
to  his  eyes,  and  he  imperfectly  articulated,  "  The  Countess  Stolberg  "  ; 
and  afterwards  he  added,  more  composedly,  "  She  was  an  angel ;  one 
whom  I  loved  more  than  any  human  being,  except  my  wife."  So 
fresh  and  faithful  are  his  feelings  in  his  old  age  to  the  memory  of 
that  extraordinary  and  unfortunate  woman,  who  has  been  dead  neaily 
thirty  years ! 

Promising  to  return  to  supper,  I  went  to  see  Creuzer,  author  of  the 
"  Symbolik,"  etc.  He  is  now,  I  should  think,  about  fifty,  —  a  man  ap 
parently  of  a  strong,  decided  character,  and  perhaps  not  very  amiable. 
I  found  him  pleasant  in  conversation,  and  much  disposed  to  tell  some 
thing  of  the  much  he  knows  ;  fond  of  anecdotes,  particularly  if  they 
were  a  little  scandalous  ;  and  in  general  a  man,  who,  though  so  deep  in 
his  books,  still  enjoys  society.  I  drank  tea  with  him,  in  company  with 
Wilken,.  who  is  just  going  to  Berlin,  and  two  or  three  others  of  the  Hei 
delberg  people,  who,  I  thought,  were  more  sociable,  talkative,  and  in 
quisitive  than  the  professors  of  the  North  are,  —  and  then  I  walked 
back  to  the  good  old  Voss,  who  lives  in  a  beautiful  retired  situation  just 
outside  of  the  town.  It  was  nearly  eight  o'clock,  and  supper  was  punc 
tually  on  the  table  ;  no  one  was  present  except  his  wife,  towards  whom 
his  manners  were  marked  by  a  tenderness  which,  if  it  had  not  been  so 
patriarchal,  would  have  approached  to  gallantry ;  and  she,  though  old 
and  beginning  to  be  feeble,  discovered  a  kind  of  attention  to  him,  .... 
which  showed  how  deep  was  her  affection It  was  a  supper  of  Ro 
man  simplicity,  nothing  but  a  perch  from  the  Neckar  and  an  omelette. 
....  The  conversation  was  almost  entirely  of  his  early  friends,  of 
whom  the  world  has  since  heard  so  much, —  of  Holtz,  whose  life  he  has 
written  so  well;  of  Leopold  Stolberg,  for  whom,  in  spite  of  changes  and 
errors,  he  seems  to  have  lost  none  of  his  regard;  and,  clarum  et 
venerabile  nomen,  of  Klopstock,  with  whom  he  was  intimate.  Of  the 
last  he  told  me  that,  after  visiting  him  in  1789,  at  Hamburg,  Klop 
stock  walked  with  him  a  mile  out  of  the  city,  and  when  they  parted, 
told  him,  as  their  conversation  had  been  political,  with  a  kind  of  pro 
phetic  emphasis  which  left  an  indelible  impression  on  Voss's  mind, 
"  The  troubles  now  breaking  out  in  France  are  the  beginnings  of  a 
European  war  between  the  patricians  and  the  plebeians.  I  see  gener- 


126  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR. 

ations  crushed  in  the  struggle.  I  see,  perhaps,  centuries  of  war  and 
desolation,  but  at  last,  in  the  remote  horizon,  I  see  the  victory  of  Lib 
erty."  The  contest  thus  far  has  been  carried  on  in  the  spirit  he  pre 
dicted,  and  the  prophecy  of  such  a  man  deserves  to  be  recorded,  to 
await  the  issue.  Voss  never  publishes  anything  without  his  wife's 
advice;  and  in  all  cases  where  he  himself  doubts  respecting  any  of  his 
works,  he  makes  her  sole  judge,  especially  in  all  matters  of  versi 
fication,  as  he  himself  told  me She  too,  as  is  well  known,  has 

uncommon  talent. 

April  6.  —  In  the  afternoon  I  left  Strasburg,  and  for  the  first  time 
came  into  genuine  French  territory.  Nothing  can  be  more  mistaken 
than  Mad.  de  Stael's  remark,  that  the  national  character  of  the  two 
people  is  sharply  defined  and  accurately  distinguished  at  the  Rhine. 
From  Frankfort  to  Strasburg  I  found  it  gradually  changing,  the  pop 
ulation  growing  more  gay  and  open,  more  accustomed  to  live  in  the 
open  air,  more  given  to  dress,  and  in  general  more  light.  At  Stras 
burg,  German  traits  still  prevail,  and  I  did  not  lose  the  language  en 
tirely  until  two  posts  before  I  came  to  Luneville.  There  I  found 
all  completely  French,  — people,  houses,  wooden  shoes,  impositions, 
etc.,  etc. 

PARIS,  April  9.  —  I  went  this  morning  to  see  CEhlenschlaeger,the  first 
Danish  poet  living,  whose  comedies  are  mentioned  by  Mad.  de  Stae'l. 
I  found  him  a  man  about  forty,  hearty,  happy,  and  gay,  enjoying  life  as 
well  as  anybody,  but  living  in  Paris  knowing  and  caring  for  nobody. 
He  is  vain,  but  not  oppressively  so  ;  and  on  the  whole  is  as  likely  to 
live  out  all  his  days  in  peace  and  happiness  and  good  cheer  as  any  one 
I  have  seen  for  a  long  time. 

April  11.  —  This  evening  I  have  been  for  the  first  time  to  the 
French  theatre ;  and  I  hasten  to  note  my  feelings  and  impressions,  that 
I  may  have  them  in  their  freshness.  It  was  rather  an  uncommon  occa 
sion,  —  the  benefit  of  Mdlle.  St.  Val,  now  sixty-five  years  old,  who  has 
not  played  before  for  thirty  years  ;  and  Talma  and  Mdlle.  Mars  both 

played The  piece  was  Iphigdnie  en  Tauride,  by  Guymond  de  la 

Touche,  which  has  been  on  the  stage  sixty  years,  but  I  cannot  find  its 

merits  above  mediocrity Iphigenie  was  performed  by  Mdlle. 

St.  Val,  who  is  old  and  ugly.  She  was  applauded  through  the  first 
act  with  decisive  good-nature,  and  in  many  parts  deserved  it ;  but  in 
the  second  act,  when  Talma  came  out  as  Orestes,  she  was  at  once  for 
gotten,  and  he  well  deserved  that  in  his  presence  no  other  should  be 

remembered The  piece  and  his  part,  like  almost  everything  of 

the  kind  in  the  French  drama,  was  conceived  in  the  style  of  the  court 


M.  25.]  TALMA.  127 

of  Louis  XIV  ;  but  Talma,  in  his  dress,  in  every  movement,  every 

look,  was  a  Greek To  have  arrived  at  such  perfection,  he  must 

have  studied  antiquity  as  no  modern  actor  has  done ;  and  the  proofs  of 
this  were  very  obvious.  His  dress  was  perfect  ;  his  gestures  and  at 
titudes  reminded  one  of  ancient  statues  ;  and  when,  in  imagination 
pursued  by  the  Furies,  he  becomes  frenzied,  changes  color,  trembles 
and  falls,  pale  and  powerless,  before  the  implacable  avengers,  it  is  im 
possible  to  doubt  that  he  has  studied  and  felt  the  scene  in  Euripides,  and 
the  praises  of  Longinus.  His  study  of  the  ancient  statues  struck  me 
in  the  passage,  —  when,  in  his  second  insanity,  he  cries  out  in  agony, — 

"  Vois-tu  d'affreux  serpens,  de  son  front  s'61ancer, 
Et  de  leur  longs  replis  te  ceindre,  et  te  presser  ? "  — 

he  started  back  into  the  posture  of  Laocoon  with  great  effect.  Like 
Demosthenes,  he  has  had  difficulties  to  overcome,  and  even  now  at 
times  he  cannot  conceal  an  unpleasant  lisp ;  but  I  have  never  seen 
acting,  in  many  respects,  like  his.  Cooke  had  a  more  vehement  and 
lofty  genius,  and  Kean  has  sometimes,  perhaps,  flashes  of  eccentric 
talent ;  but  in  an  equal  elevation  of  mind,  and  in  dignity  and  force, 
Talma,  I  think,  left  them  all  far  behind. 

April  14.  —  I  called  this  morning  on  A.  W.  Schlegel.  His  history, 
like  his  brother  Frederick's,  is  singular  and  unfortunate.  Their 
father  was  a  man  of  considerable  learning,  and  a  poet  whose  religious 
odes  and  hymns  are  still  read.  Augustus,  who  was  his  youngest  son 
but  one,  was  sent  early  to  Gottingen,  where  he  remained  five 
years.  As  his  reputation  was  already  considerable,  he  was  soon  called 

as  professor  to  Jena,  and  married  a  daughter  of  Michaelis He 

resigned  his  place  and  left  the  University.  When  Mad.  de  Stael  went 
to  Germany,  he  was  without  a  home  ;  he  attached  himself  to  her,  and 
has  been  with  her  through  all  her  travels  in  Germany,  Italy,  Sweden, 

and  England The  consequence  of  his  troubles  and  this 

mode  of  life  is,  that  he  now  looks  like  a  careworn,  wearied  courtier, 
with  the  manners  of  a  Frenchman  of  the  gayest  circles,  and  the  habits 
of  a  German  scholar,  —  a  confusion  anything  but  natural  or  graceful. 

I  found  him  in  full  dress,  with  his  snuff-box  and  handkerchief  by 
his  side,  not  sitting  up  to  receive  company,  but  poring  over  a  folio 
Sanscrit  Grammar;  for  he  has  recently  left  his  other  studies,  even  his 
Etruscan  antiquities,  that  employed  him  so  zealously  a  year  ago, 
when  he  wrote  his  review  of  Niebuhr,  and  has  thrown  himself  on  the 
Eastern  languages  with  a  passion  purely  German.  He  talked  very  volu 
bly  in  French,  with  an  uncommonly  pure  accent,  on  all  the  subjects 


128  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1817. 

that  happened  to  come  up  ;  but,  con  amore,  chiefly  on  England,  and 
above  everything  else  on  his  Lectures  and  the  English  translation 
of  them,  which,  he  said,  he  should  be  much  delighted  to  hear  was  re 
printed  in  America.  In  writing  them  in  German,  he  said,  he  en 
deavored  to  keep  before  himself  English  and  French  prose,  which  he 
preferred  to  the  German,  and  asked  me  with  the  eagerness  of  a  hard 
ened  literator,  whether  I  had  not  observed  traces  of  this  in  reading 
them,  —  a  question  I  was  luckily  able  to  answer  in  the  affirmative, 
without  doing  violence  to  my  conscience.  On  the  whole,  he  amused 
me  considerably,  and  I  will  seek  occasion  to  see  him  often,  if  I  can. 

April  19.  — Among  other  letters  to  Mad.  de  Stae'l,  I  had  brought 
one  from  Sir  Humphry  Davy,  and  on  coming  from  her  house  the 
other  day,  after  having  left  them,  I  met  him  most  unexpectedly  on  the 
Boulevards.  Since  then  I  have  seen  him  two  or  three  times  at  his 
lodgings  and  my  own,  and  to-day  I  have  dined  with  him  at  Mad.  de 
StaeTs,  or  rather  with  her  daughter,  the  Duchess  de  Broglie,  who  now 
receives  her  mother's  friends  ;  long  illness  preventing  her  receiving 
them  herself. 

The  company  was  not  large, —  Sir  Humphry  and  Lady  Davy, 
Baron  Humboldt,  the  Duke  de  Laval,  Augustus  Schlegel,  Auguste 
de  Stae'l,  and  the  Duke  and  Duchess  de  Broglie,  —  but  it  was  not  on 
that  account  less  agreeable.  It  was  the  first  time  that  I  had  felt 
anything  of  the  spirit  and  charm  of  French  society,  which  has  been 
so  much  talked  of  since  the  time  of  Louis  XIV. ;  and  it  is  curious  that 
on  this  occasion  more  than  half  the  company  were  foreigners,  and  that 
the  two  who  entertained  the  rest  more  than  any  others  were  Germans. 
It  is  but  fair  to  say,  however,  that  Baron  Humboldt  and  M.  de 
Schlegel  have  been  so  long  in  France  that  they  have  lost  their  nation 
ality  in  all  that  relates  to  society,  and,  like  Baron  Grimm  and  the 
Prince  de  Ligne,  have  become  more  amusing  to  Frenchmen  than  their 
indigenous  wits.  The  Duchess  de  Broglie  is  quite  handsome,  and  has 
fine  talents  ;  her  manners  are  naive  to  a  fault,  without  being  affected, 
but  her  beauty  and  talent  make  one  forget  it.  The  Duke  is  a  fine- 
looking  man  of  about  twenty-nine,  with,  it  is  said,  an  uncommon 
amount  of  political  knowledge,  with  liberal  modes  of  thinking  and 
speaking,  still  more  extraordinary  in  the  grandson  of  the  proud  and 
presumptuous  Marshal  de  Broglie.  Schlegel  has  remarkable  powers 
for  conversation,  and  often  shines,  because  he  unites  German  enthusi 
asm  and  force  to  French  lightness  and  vivacity;  and  Humboldt  was  so 
excited  by  the  presence  of  Sir  Humphry  Davy,  that  he  became  elo 
quent The  conversation  turned  much  on  South  America,  of 


M.  25.]  HUMBOLDT.  129 

which  everybody  has  been  talking  in  Paris  since  the  piiblication  of 
the  Abbe  de  Pradt's  book,  in  which  he  expresses  the  most  sanguine 
expectation  of  its  speedy  emancipation.  In  these  expectations  and 
hopes  all  the  republicans  in  Paris,  with  Mad.  de  Stael  at  their  head, 
heartily  join  ;  but  the  Baron  de  Humboldt,  though  his  wishes  are  the 
same,  is  by  no  means  of  the  same  opinion. 

April  26.  —  The  two  most  interesting  acquaintances  I  have  in 
Paris,  thus  far,  are  Schlegel  and  Humboldt  ;  and  the  manner  of  living 
adopted  by  both  of  them  is  original.  Schlegel's  is  such,  indeed,  as 
partly  to  account  for  his  success  as  a  man  of  letters,  and  as  a  member 
of  the  gay  society  of  Paris.  He  wakes  at  four  o'clock  in  the  morning, 
and,  instead  of  getting  up,  has  his  candle  brought  to  him  and  reads 
five  or  six  hours,  theri  sleeps  two  or  three  more,  and  then  gets  up  and 
works  till  dinner  at  six.  From  this  time  till  ten  o'clock  he  is  a  man  of 
the  world,  in  society,  and  overflowing  with  amusing  conversation  ; 
but  at  ten  he  goes  to  his  study  and  labors  until  midnight,  when  he 
begins  the  same  course  again. 

Humboldt's  is  entirely  different,  but  not  less  remarkable.  For  him, 
night  and  day  form  one  mass  of  time  which  he  uses  for  sleeping,  for 
meals,  for  labor,  without  making  any  arbitrary  division  of  it.  It 
must  be  confessed  that  this  power,  or  habit,  is  convenient  in  the  kind 
of  life  which  must  be  led  in  a  great  metropolis  by  one  who,  with 
great  talents,  wishes  to  be  at  once  a  learned  man  and  a  man  of  the 
world.  M.  de  Humboldt,  therefore,  sleeps  only  when  he  is  weary 
and  has  leisure,  and  if  he  wakes  at  midnight  he  rises  and  begins  his 
work  as  he  would  in  the  morning.  He  eats  when  he  is  hungry,  and 
if  he  is  invited  to  dine  at  six  o'clock,  this  does  not  prevent  him  from 
going  at  five  to  a  restaurant,  because  he  considers  a  great  dinner  only 
as  a  party  of  pleasure  and  amusement.  But  all  the  rest  of  the  time, 
when  he  is  not  in  society,  he  locks  his  door  and  gives  himself  lip  to 
study,  rarely  receiving  visits,  but  those  which  have  been  announced 
to  him  the  day  previous,  and  never,  I  believe,  refusing  these,  because, 
as  he  well  explained  to  me,  when  he  can  foresee  an  interruption,  he 
prepares  himself  for  it,  and  it  ceases  to  be  such.  All  this  is,  to  be 
sure,  very  fine  ;  but  then,  such  a  life  presupposes  two  things  :  a  con 
stitution  able  to  resist  all  fatigue,  physical  and  moral  ;  and  a  reputa 
tion  which  puts  its  possessor  above  the  conventions  of  society,  and 
allows  him  to  act  as  a  king.  Baron  Humboldt  unites  them  both. 
His  ample  and  regular  frame,  his  firm  step,  and  the  decision  and  force 
with  which  he  marks  every  movement,  indicate  the  man  who  has 
survived  the  tropical  heat  of  the  Orinoco  and  ascended  the  peak  of 
6*  I 


130  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1817. 

Chimborazo  ;  .  .  .  .  while,  on  the  other  hand,  his  prodigious  acquire 
ments,  extending  nearly  on  all  sides  to  the  limits  of  human  discovery, 
kindled  by  an  enthusiasm  which  has  supported  him  where  every 
other  principle  would  have  failed,  and  prevented  from  being  oppres 
sive  or  obtruding  by  a  sort  of  modesty  which  makes  it  impossible  for 
him  to  offend,  —  all  together  render  him  one  of  the  most  interesting 
men  in  the  world,  and  the  idol  of  Parisian  society. 

April  29.  —  I  go  often  to  see  Bishop  or  Count  Gregoire,  who  receives 
company  every  evening.  He  has  played  a  distinguished  part  in 
French  affairs,  from  the  year  1789  till  the  fall  of  Bonaparte  ;  but,  like 
many  other  men  of  distinction,  he  plays  it  no  longer.  Amidst  all 
changes  and  perils,  however,  he  has  supported  with  no  common  firm 
ness  the  cause  of  religion;  and  if  —  zealous  republican  as  he  is  —  he 
had  not  soiled  himself  by  accepting  the  place  and  revenue  of  senator 
from  Bonaparte,  he  would  deserve  nearly  unmingled  praise  as  a  poli 
tician Amidst  all  his  calamities,  it  is  curious  that  what  morti 
fies  and  exasperates  him  the  most  is  the  loss  of  his  place  in  the 
Academy,  which  was  taken  from  him  because  he  voted  for  the  per 
petual  exile  of  Louis  XVI. 

May  2.  —  This  evening  I  have  passed,  as  I  do  most  of  my  Sunday 
evenings,  very  pleasantly,  at  Helen  Maria  Williams's.  The  company 
generally  consists  of  literary  Englishmen,  with  several  Frenchmen, 
well  known  in  the  world,  —  such  as  Marron  the  preacher,  whom 
Bonaparte  liked  so  much,  Stapfer  the  Swiss  minister,  who  concluded 
the  treaty  of  1802,  several  professors  of  the  College  de  France,  etc. 
This  evening  Mrs.  Godwin  was  there,  wife  of  the  notorious  William 
Godwin,  and  successor  to  the  no  less  notorious  Mary  Wollstonecraft. 
She  has  come  to  Paris  to  sell  a  romance,  of  which  I  have  forgotten 
the  title,  that  her  husband  has  recently  written,  and  thinks  as  good 
as  "  Caleb  Williams."  The  booksellers  of  Paris,  I  believe,  are  not  of 
his  opinion,  and  probably  they  are  right,  for  Mr.  Godwin  is  no  longer 
at  the  age  in  which  the  imagination  is  capable  of  such  efforts.  Miss 
Williams  herself,  is  evidently  waning.  Her  conversation  is  not  equal 
to  her  reputation,  and  I  suspect  never  was  brilliant ;  since,  as  I  should 
think,  it  must  always  have  been  affected.  But  still  she  is  an  uncom 
mon  woman,  and,  except  when  she  gets  upon  politics,  talks  sensibly. 
....  After  having  been  successively  royalist,  republican,  and  Bona- 
partist,  she  finds  it  impossible,  now  she  has  again  become  Bourbonist, 
to  get  along  in  conversation 

May  6.  —  I  dined  to-day  with  an  uncommonly  interesting  party  at 
Mad.  de  Stael's.  Besides  the  family,  there  was  the  Russian  Min- 


M.  25.]  PAEIS.  131 

ister,  Count  Pozzo  di  Borgo,  the  Censor-General  of  the  French  Press, 
Villemain,  Palissot,  author  of  the  "  Memoirs  on  French  Literature," 
and  two  or  three  other  persons.  The  persons  present  were  chiefly  of 
the  order  of  beaux  esprits,  but  no  one  was  so  brilliant  as  the  Russian 
Minister,  who  has  that  facility  and  grace  in  making  epigrammatic 
remarks,  which  in  French  society  is  valued  above  all  other  talent. 
The  little  Duchess  de  Broglie  was  evidently  delighted  to  an  ex 
traordinary  degree  with  his  wit,  and  two  or  three  times,  with  her 
enthusiasm  and  naivetd,  could  not  avoid  going  to  her  mother's  room, 
to  tell  her  some  of  the  fine  things  he  said.  I  do  not  know  bow  a  for 
eigner  has  acquired  the  French  genius  so  completely,  ....  but 
certainly  I  have  seen  nobody  yet,  who  has  'the  genuine  French  wit, 
with  its  peculiar  grace  and  fluency,  so  completely  in  his  power  as  M. 
Pozzo  di  Borgo ;  *  and  on  my  saying  this  to  M.  Schlegel,  he  told  me 
there  was  nobody  equal  to  him  but  Benjamin  Constant. 


To  ELISHA  TICKNOR, 

PARIS,  May  3,  1817. 

Well,  my  dear  father  and  mother,  I  can  now  say  I  am  settled  down 
to  my  occupations  in  Paris ;  and,  if  I  am  not  happy,  which  you  will  not 
be  so  unreasonable  as  to  expect  me  to  say,  I  am  at  least  quite  con 
tented.  The  only  way  I  can  keep  myself  quiet  is  to  have  so  much 
business  on  my  hands  that,  between  rising  in  the  morning  and  going 
to  bed  at  night  I  have  no  idle  hour  or  moment  for  other  thoughts  ; 
and  so  I  do  not  fret  myself  into  discontent  by  thinking  about  home. 

I  rise  at  six  o'clock.  Punctually  at  seven,  every  morning,  comes 
my  French  master,  —  a  young  man  sent  to  me  by  the  venerable 
Le  Chevalier,  who  nearly  half  a  century  ago  wrote  a  remarkable 
book  on  the  "  Plain  of  Troy  "  ;  he  remains  with  me  an  hour  and  a 
half,  to  my  great  profit.  When  he  is  gone,  I  prepare  my  next  lesson 
for  him.  At  eleven,  my  Italian  master  comes,  —  a  man  of  forty,  who 
is  a  very  fine  scholar,  not  only  in  his  own  language  and  literature, 
but  in  the  ancient  and  most  of  the  modem.  He  remains  with  me  as 
long  as  my  French  teacher,  and  then  I  prepare  for  the  next  recitation, 
At  one,  I  lunch  ;  for,  as  to  meals,  it  is  necessary  to  conform  to  the 
hours  of  the  people  you  are  among,  and  nobody  dines  in  Paris  before 
five,  —  fashionable  people,  not  till  six  or  seven. 

At  three  o'clock,  on  Mondays,  Wednesdays,  and  Fridays,  I  have  an 
instructor  in  the  Langue  Romane,  or,  in  other  words,  the  transition  of 

*  Note  by  Mr.  Ticknor  :  "  I  have  learned  since  that  he  is  a  Corsican." 


132  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1817. 

the  Latin  language  into  the  modern  language  of  the  South  of  Europe. 
On  Tuesdays,  Thursdays,  and  Saturdays,  a  young  man  who  has  a 
thorough  knowledge  of  French  literature,  with  much  taste  and  talent, 
reads  with  me  and  to  me,  that  I  may  get  French  pronunciation  and 
the  spirit  of  the  French  authors,  which  I  certainly  could  not  get  so 
well  or  so  quickly  in  any  other  way,  —  probably  not  at  all.  At  five 
o'clock  I  dine  in  my  own  room,  which  saves  me  the  trouble  and  time 
of  dining,  as  most  strangers  do.  at  a  public  eating-house. 

Thus  you  see,  that  from  six  in  the  morning  until  five  in  the  after 
noon  I  am  every  moment  employed  ;  but  from  five,  I  consider  my 
self  free.  About  six  o'clock,  I  generally  go  over  the  river,  and  pass 
an  hour  with  Thorndike,  who  is  still  sick ;  and  then  go  either  to  see 
some  French  acquaintance,  or  to  the  theatre,  or  else  come  home  and 
amuse  myself  with  whatever  most  interests  me. 

Miss  Helen  Maria  Williams  and  M.  Pichon,  formerly  French 
Resident  in  the  United  States  in  the  time  of  the  Republic,  since 
Jerome's  Minister  of  Finance,  and  now  a  member  of  the  King's  Coun 
cil,  receive  each  one  evening  in  the  week  ;  and  at  Mad.  de  StaeTs, 
or  rather  her  daughter  the  Duchess  de  Broglie's,  —  for  her  mother 
is  ill,  so  that  I  have  not  seen  her,  —  there  is  a  coterie  every  evening. 
Good  literary  society  is  found  at  all,  and  at  the  Duchess  de  Broglie's 
the  best  in  Paris.  I  have  a  general  privilege  at  each  of  them  ;  and, 
besides,  know  many  other  persons,  whom  I  can  visit  when  I  choose, 
so  that  I  do  not  get  an  opportunity  to  go  to  the  theatre  as  often  as  I 
could  wish  for  the  sake  of  the  language  and  pronunciation.  At 
eleven  o'clock,  extraordinaries  excepted,  I  am  at  home  and  in  bed 

JOURNAL. 

PARIS,  May  11,  1817.  — At  last  I  have  seen  Mad.  de  Stael.  Ever 
since  I  presented  my  letters,  she  has  been  so  ill  that  her  physicians 
refused  her  permission  to  see  above  three  or  four  persons  a  day,  and 
those  such  of  her  most  familiar  friends  as  would  amuse  without  excit 
ing  her.  Yesterday,  however,  her  son  called  on  me,  and  told  me  if  I 
would  come  and  dine  with  them  to-day  alone,  his  mother  would  see 
me,  whether  her  physician  gave  her  leave  or  not.  I  went,  therefore, 
early,  and  was  immediately  carried  to  her  room.  She  was  in  bed, 
pale,  feeble,  and  evidently  depressed  in  spirits  ;  and  the  mere  stretch 
ing  out  her  hand  to  me,  or  rather  making  a  slight  movement,  as  if  she 
desired  to  do  it,  cost  an  effort  it  was  painful  to  witness. 

Observing,  with  that  intuition  for  which  she  has  been  always  so 


^E.  25.]  MADAME  DE  STAEL.  133 

famous,  the  effect  her  situation  produced  on  me,  she  said:  "  II  ne 
faut  pas  me  juger  de  ce  que  vous  voyez  ici.  Ce  n'est  pas  ruoi,  —  ce 
n'est  que  Fombre  de  ce  que  j'etais  il  y  a  quatre  mois,  —  et  une  ombre 
qui  peut-etre  disparaitra  bientot."  I  told  her  that  M.  Portal  and 
her  other  physicians  did  not  think  so.  "  Oui, "  said  she,  while  her  eye 
kindled  in  the  consciousness  that  she  was  about  to  say  one  of  those 
brilliant  things  with  which  she  had  so  often  electrified  a  drawing- 
room, —  "oui,  je  le  sais,  mais  ils  y  mettent  toujours  tant  de  vanite 
d'auteur,  que  je  ne  m'y  fie  pas  du  tout.  Je  ne  mereleveraijamais  de 
cette  inaladie.  J'en  suis  sure."  She  saw  at  this  moment  that  the 
Duchess  de  Broglie  had  entered  the  apartment,  and  was  so  much  af 
fected  by  the  last  remark,  that  she  had  gone  to  the  window  to  hide 
her  feelings.  She  therefore  began,  to  talk  about  America.  Every 
thing  she  said  was  marked  with  that  imagination  which  gives  such  a 
peculiar  energy  to  her  works,  and  which  has  made  her  so  long  the 
idol  of  French  society  ;  but  whenever  she  seemed  to  be  aware  that  she 
was  about  to  utter  any  phrase  offeree  and  aptness,  her  languid  features 
were  kindled  with  an  animation  which  made  a  strange  contrast  with 
her  feeble  condition.  Especially  when  she  said  of  America,  —  "  vous 
etes  1'avant  garde  du  genre  humain,  vous  etes  1'avenir  du  monde,"  - 
there  came  a  slight  tinge  of  feeling  into  her  face,  which  spoke  plainly 
enough  of  the  pride  of  genius.  As  I  feared  to  weary  her  with  con 
versation,  I  asked  her  daughter  if  I  should  not  go  ;  but  she  said  she 
was  glad  to  see  her  mother  interested,  and  wished  rather  that  I  should 
stay.  I  remained  therefore  half  an  hour  longer,  —  until  dinner  was 
announced,  —  during  which  we  talked  chiefly  of  the  prospects  of 
Europe,  of  which  she  despairs. 

When  I  rose  to  go  she  gave  me  her  hand,  and  said,  under  the  im 
pression  I  was  soon  going  to  America,  "  Vous  serez  bientot  chez  vous, 
—  et  moi  j'y  vais  aussi."  I  pretended  not  to  understand  her,  and 
told  her  I  was  sure  I  should  see  her  in  Switzerland,  much  better.  She 
looked  on  her  daughter,  while  her  eyes  filled  with  tears,  and  said  in 
English,  "  God  grant  me  that  favor,"  and  I  left  her. 

The  impression  of  this  scene  remained  upon  us  all  during  the  dinner; 
but  in  the  evening  old  M.  St.  Leon  and  MM.  Lacretelle  and  Villemain 
(the  latter  I  find  to  be  one  of  the  most  eloquent  professors  in  Paris) 
came  in,  and  gave  a  gayer  air  to  the  party  and  conversation . 

May  13.  —  I  passed  this  evening  with  Say,  the  author  of  the  book 
on  political  economy,  which  is  now  considered  one  of  the  best,  or  the 
very  best  extant,  as  it  is  the  full  development  of  Adam  Smith's  system, 
with  an  explanation  in  the  notes  of  the  systems  of  the  Economists. 


134  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1817. 

It  is  impossible  to  be  in  Say's  presence  without  feeling  you  are 
before  a  man  that  thinks  independently.  All  he  says  has  a  spirit  about 
it  which  can  be  the  result  only  of  a  well-disciplined  mind,  and  even 
his  native  language,  equivocal  as  it  is,  seems  to  acquire  a  precision 
and  definiteuess  under  his  hands  which  are  foreign  from  its  nature. 
I  have  several  times  seen  him  alone ;  but  this  evening  there  was 
company  at  his  house,  and  I  thought  its  excitement  had  a  good  effect 
on  him,  since  in  general  he  is  too  serious  and  even  severe  for  the 
French  character. 

May  14.— This  evening  I  passed  delightfully  at  Benjamin  Constant's. 

It  matters  little  to  me  what  may  be  thought  of  him  as  a  politician 

I  care  nothing  for  all  his  inconsistency,  and  forget  it  all  when  I  am 
in  his  presence,  and  listen  to  the  vivacity  and  wit  of  his  conversation. 

There  were  several  distinguished  men  of  letters  there  this  evening. 
St.  Leon,  Lacretelle,  Schlegel,  etc,  —  two  or  three  women  who  are  at 
once  wits  and  belles,  etc 

They  were  all  assembled  to  hear  the  Baron  de  Humboldt  read  some 
passages  out  of  an  unpublished  volume  of  his  travels.  This  is  precisely 
the  sort  of  society  that  used  to  assemble  in  the  coteries  of  the  times 
of  Louis  XIV.  and  XV.,  and  it  required  no  great  effort  of  the  imagina 
tion  to  persuade  me  that  I  was  at  a  soiree  of  those  periods.  Every 
thing  this  evening  was  purely  French  ;  the  wit,  the  criticism,  the 
vivacity,  even  the  good-nature  and  kindness,  had  a  cast  of  nationality 
about  them,  and  took  that  form  which  in  France  is  called  amiabil 
ity,  but  which  everywhere  else  would  be  called  flattery.  I  was 
therefore  amused,  and  indeed  interested  and  excited  ;  but  the  interest 
and  excitement  you  feel  in  French  society  is  necessarily  transient,  and 
this  morning  my  strongest  recollections  are  of  Humboldt's  genius  and 
modesty,  and  his  magical  descriptions  of  the  scenery  of  the  Orinoco, 
and  the  holy  solitudes  of  nature,  and  the  missionaries. 

May  16.  —  M.  de  Humboldt  is  certainly  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
men  I  have  seen  in  Europe,  —  perhaps  the  most  so.*  I  was  sitting 
with  him  to-day,  and,  turning  round,  observed  a  large  Mercator's  Chart 

*  One  day  Mr.  Ticknor  was  walking  in  Paris  with  a  friend  and  townsman,  when 
they  met  Baron  Humholdt.  Mr.  Ticknor  bowed,  and  was  passing  on,  when  Hum 
holdt  stopped,  and  said  that  there  was  to  be  afonction  at  the  Institute  the  next 
day,  and  that  if  Mr.  Ticknor  would  like  to  be  present,  he  would  give  him  a  ticket. 
The  offer  was  accepted  with  proper  acknowledgments.  Humboldt  then  added, 
"  Perhaps  your  friend  would  like  to  go  too  ? "  His  companion  said  he  should  be 
very  glad,  and  a  ticket  was  given  to  him  also.  As  they  parted,  his  friend  said, 
"  Now,  is  there  a  Frenchman  in  all  Paris  who  would  have  done  this  ? " 


JL  25.]  LACRETELLE.  135 

of  the  World  suspended  in  front  of  the  table  at  which  he  studies,  and 
it  seemed  to  me  at  the  instant  to  be  an  emblem  of  the  immensity  of 
his  knowledge  and  genius,  which  reach  on  all  sides  nearly  to  the 
limits  of  human  acquirement,  and  on  some  have  certainly  extended  to 
those  limits.  I  have  been  most  surprised  at  his  classical  knowledge, 
at  his  taste,  and  familiarity  with  the  ancient  and  modern  languages, 
for  here  he  might  be  to  a  certain  degree  dispensed  from  the  obligation 
of  extending  his  researches  very  far ;  and  yet  I  know  few  professed  in 
the  depths  of  "the  humanities "  who  have  more  just  and  enlarged 
notions  of  classical  antiquity  ;  few  scholars  who  understand  Greek 
and  Latin  as  well  as  he  seems  to  ;  and  no  man  of  the  world  who  speaks 
the  modern  languages  with  more  fluency.  And  these  all  lie,  as  it 
were,  out  of  the  periphery  of  his  real  greatness  ;  how  great  must  he 
then  be  on  those  subjects  to  which  he  has  devoted  the  concentrated 
efforts  of  his  talents,  and  where  I  have  not  even  the  little  knowledge 
and  power  necessary  to  estimate  what  he  is ! 

May  17.  —  I  went  this  morning  to  hear  a  lecture  from  Lacretelle  ; 
not  because  I  have  any  desire  to  follow  his  course,  —  for  I  have  long 
awakened  from  the  dream  in  which  I  supposed  I  could  find  instruction 
in  the  branches  I  pursue,  in  the  German  way,  from  French  lectures, — 
but  because  I  wish  to  know  what  is  the  precise  style  adopted  by 
these  men,  who  are  famous  at  home  and  even  abroad.  I  have  not 
been  so  well  pleased  with  the  manner  of  anybody,  whose  instructions 
I  have  heard,  as  with  that  of  Lacretelle.  He  has  a  fine  person,  a  fine 
voice,  excellent  command  of  language,  which  never  permits  him  to 
hesitate,  and  a  prompt  taste,  which  never  permits  him  to  choose  the 
wrong  word.  His  memory  too  is  remarkable  ;  for,  though  his  depart 
ment  is  history,  he  never  uses  notes  of  any  kind,  and  in  relating  to 
day  the  story  of  Regulus,  he  repeated  not  less  than  thirty  different 
numbers.  I  prefer  him  to  the  other  lecturers  I  have  heard,  because 
there  is  more  seriousness  and  dignity  in  his  manner,  less  attempt  at 
point  and  effect,  and  in  general  a  greater  desire  to  instruct  than  I 
have  yet  found,  —  though  still  even  his  manner  is  not  simple  enough 
to  produce  the  just  effect  of  instruction.  He  is,  still,  to  a  certain  de 
gree,  a  Frenchman  talking  brilliantly. 

May  18.  —  This  evening,  by  a  lucky  accident,  I  went  earlier  than 
usual  to  Miss  Williams's,  and  found  there,  by  another  mere  accident, 

Southey There  was  little  company  present,  and  soon  after  I 

went  in  I  found  myself  in  a  corner  with  him,  from  which  neither  of 
us  moved  until  nearly  midnight.  He  is,  I  presume,  about  forty-five, 
tall  and  thin,  with  a  figure  resembling  the  statues  of  Pitt,  and  a  face 


136  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1817. 

by  no  means  unlike  his.  His  manners  are  a  little  awkward,  but  the 
openness  of  his  character  is  so  great  that  this  does  not  embarrass  him. 
He  immediately  began  to  talk  about  America,  and  particularly  the 
early  history  of  New  England,  with  which  he  showed  that  sort  of  fa 
miliarity  which  I  suppose  characterizes  his  knowledge  wherever  he 
has  displayed  it.  Of  Roger  Williams  and  John  Eliot  I  was  ashamed 
to  find  that  he  knew  more  than  I  did.  Roger  Williams,  he  thought, 
deserved  the  reputation  which  Penn  has  obtained,  and  Eliot  he  pro 
nounced  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  men  of  any  country.  Once, 
he  said,  he  had  determined  to  write  a  poem  on  the  war  and  character 
of  King  Philip,  and  at  that  time  studied  the  Indian  history  and 
manners,  which  he  thinks  highly  poetical.  So  near  has  the  Plymouth 
Colony  come  to  being  classical  ground  !  While  engaged  in  these  re 
searches,  and  as  he  was  once  travelling  in  a  post-chaise  to  London,  he 
bought  at  a  stall  in  Nottingham,  Mather's  Magnalia,  which  he  read  all 
the  way  to  town,  and  found  it  one  of  the  most  amusing  books  he  had 
ever  seen.  Accident  and  other  occupations  interrupted  these  studies, 
he  said,  and  he  has  never  taken  them  lip  again.  He  had  read  most  of 
our  American  poetry,  and  estimated  it  more  highly  than  we  are  accus 
tomed  to,  though  still  he  did  not  praise  it  foolishly.  Barlow's  Colum- 
biad,  Dwight's  Conquest  of  Canaan,  McFingal,  etc.,  were  all  familiar  to 
him,  and  he  not  only  spoke  of  them  with  discrimination,  but  even  re 
peated  some  lines  from  them  in  support  of  his  opinion  of  their  merits. 
By  accident  we  came  upon  the  review  of  Inchiquin,  which,  he  said, 
was  written  in  a  bad  spirit ;  and  he  added  that  he  had  seldom  been  so 
chagrined  or  mortified  by  any  event  of  his  literary  life,  as  by  being 
thought  its  author,  though  he  should  rather  have  written  the  review 

than  the  New  York  answer  to  it He  talked  with  me  about  the 

Germans  and  their  literature  a  good  deal,  and  said  if  he  were  ten 
years  younger  he  would  gladly  give  a  year  to  learn  German,  for  he 
considered  it  now  the  most  important  language,  after  English,  for  a 
man  of  letters ;  and  added  with  a  kind  of  decision  which  showed  he 
had  thought  of  the  subject,  and  received  a  good  deal  of  information 
about  it,  that  there  is  more  intellectual  activity  in  Germany  now  than 
in  any  other  country  in  the  world.  In  conversation  such  as  this 
three  hours  passed  very  quickly  away,  and  when  we  separated,  I  left 
him  in  the  persuasion  that  his  character  is  such  as  his  books  would 
represent  it,  —  simple  and  enthusiastic,  and  his  knowledge  very  va 
rious  and  minute. 

May  28.  —  I  dined  to  day  again  at  Mad.  de  StaeTs.     There  were 
few  persons  there,  but  she  likes  to  have  somebody  every  day,  for  soci- 


M.  25.]  CHATEAUBRIAND.  137 

ety  is  necessary  to  her.  To-day,  however,  she  was  less  well,  and  saw 
none  of  us.  At  another  time  I  should  have  regretted  this  ;  but  to 
day  I  should  have  been  sorry  to  have  left  the  party  for  any  reason, 
since,  beside  the  Due  de  Laval,  and  M.  Barante,  whom  I  already  knew, 
there  were  Chateaubriand  and  Mad.  Recamier,  two  persons  whom  I 
was  as  curious  to  see  as  any  two  persons  in  France  whom  I  had  not 
yet  met.  The  Duchess  de  Broglie,  with  her  characteristic  good-nature 
finding  how  much  I  was  interested  in  these  new  acquaintances,  placed 
me  between  them  at  dinner,  so  that  I  had  an  opportunity  to  know 
something  more  of  them.  Mad.  Recamier  must  now  be  forty  or  more, 
though  she  has  not  the  appearance  of  so  much,  and  the  lustre  of  that 
beauty  which  filled  Europe  with  its  fame  is  certainly  faded.  I  do  not 
mean  to  say  she  is  not  still  beautiful,  for  she  certainly  is,  and  very 
beautiful.  Her  figure  is  fine,  her  mild  eyes  full  of  expression,  and 
her  arm  and  hand  most  beautiful.  I  was  surprised  to  find  her  with 
fair  complexion,  ....  and  no  less  surprised  to  find  the  general  ex 
pression  of  her  countenance  anything  but  melancholy,  and  her  conver 
sation  gay  and  full  of  vivacity,  though  at  the  same  time,  it  should  be 
added,  always  without  extravagance. 

Chateaubriand  is  a  short  man,  with  a  dark  complexion,  black  hair, 
black  eyes,  and  altogether  a  most  marked  countenance.  It  needs  no 
skill  in  physiognomy,  to  say  at  once  that  he  is  a  man  of  firmness  and 
decision  of  character,  for  every  feature  and  every  movement  of  his 
person  announce  it.  He  is  too  grave  and  serious,  and  gives  a  grave 
and  serious  turn  to  the  conversation  in  which  he  engages  ;  and  even 
when  the  whole  table  laughed  at  Barante's  wit,  Chateaubriand  did  not 
even  smile;— not,  perhaps,  because  he  did  not  enjoy  the  wit  as 
much  as  the  rest,  but  because  laughing  is  too  light  for  the  enthusiasm 
which  forms  the  basis  of  his  character,  and  would  certainly  offend 
against  the  consistency  we  always  require.  It  was  natural  for  us 
to  talk  about  America,  and  he  gave  me  a  long  and  eloquent  descrip 
tion  of  his  travels  from  Philadelphia  to  Niagara,  and  from  Niagara 
across  the  unbroken  forests  to  New  Orleans;  but  I  must  confess  he  did 
not  discover  that  eagerness  and  vanity  on  the  subject  which  I  think  he 

does  in  his  Martyrs  and  his  Itinerary On  the  contrary,  he 

seemed  rather  to  prefer  to  talk  of  Italy  and  Rome,  of  which  his  recollec 
tions  seemed  more  lively  than  of  any  other  part  of  his  travels  ;  and, 
indeed,  I  doubt  not  he  would  like  to  return  there  rather  than  to  revisit 
any  country  he  has  yet  seen,  for  he  spoke  of  Rome  as  a  "place  where  it 
is  so  easy  to  be  happy."  His  conversation,  like  his  character,  seems 
prompt,  original,  decisive,  and,  like  his  works,  full  of  sparkling  phrases, 


138  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1817. 

happy  combinations  and  thoughts,  sometimes  more  brilliant  than 
just.  His  general  tone  was  declamatory,  though  not  extravagantly  so, 
and  its  general  effect  that  of  interesting  the  feelings  and  attention, 
without  producing  conviction  or  changing  opinion. 

Sunday,  June  1.  — Passing  Mad.  de  Steel's  this  afternoon,  I  called 
to  ask  for  her ;  but,  seeing  accidentally  the  Duchess  de  Broglie,  she  car 
ried  me  to  her  mother's  room,  where  I  found  her  sitting  up,  with 
Schlegel,  her  son,  and  Eocca  —  whom  the  world  has  talked  about  so 
much  — sitting  with  her.  She  was  full  of  the  news  just  received  of 
troubles  in  Portuguese  America,  —  from  which  she  hopes  much  more 
than  will  ever  happen,— and  of  a  review  that  Constant  has  just 
printed  in  the  Mercure,  which  she  says  is  equal  in  felicity  of  diction 
to  anything  that  has  been  written  in  France  these  thirty  years.  While 
we  were  talking  of  it  several  persons  came  in,  —  Barante,  whom  I 
almost  always  find  there ;  Lady  Jersey,  a  sensible,  beautiful  English 
woman ;  and  finally  Constant  himself,  who  seemed  well  pleased  to  col 
lect  the  tributes  of  applause  which  were  offered  to  him  by  all,  and  es 
pecially  by  the  beautiful  Duchess  de  Broglie,  who  with  her  usual 
naivete  told  him  what  she  thought  of  his  review,  and  what  she  had 
heard  of  the  opinions  of  others.  It  was  a  very  amusing  scene,  and 
there  was  a  great  deal  of  French  wit,  epigram,  and  compliment  lav 
ished  in  the  conversation  ;  but  it  was  interrupted  by  the  arrival  of 
the  patriarch  of  French  medicine,  Dr.  Portal,  who,  of  course,  sent 
every  one  out  of  the  apartment  with  as  little  ceremony  as  he  himself 
came  in. 

In  the  evening  I  was  —  as  I  usually  am  on  Sunday  eve  —  at  Miss 
Williams's,  and  was  amused  to  hear  Humboldt,  with  his  decisive 
talent  and  minute  knowledge  of  the  subject,  show  how  utterly  idle 
are  all  the  expectations  now  entertained  of  the  immediate  and  vio 
lent  emancipation  of  South  America.  Without  knowing  it,  he  an 
swered  every  argument  Mad.  de  Stael  had  used,  this  morning,  to  per 
suade  me  that  the  fate  of  the  South  was  as  much  decided  as  the  fate 
of  our  Independence  was  at  the  capture  of  Yorktown  ;  and  I  note  the 
fact  at  this  moment,  to  wait  the  event  that  will  decide  which  of 
these  two  personages  is  right. 

June  2.  —  I  called  this  morning  on  Chateaubriand.  He  is  now 
poor,  for  his  occupation  is  gone,  and  he  lives  in  a  Mtel  garni,  not  far 
from  my  lodgings.  We  talked  a  good  deal  about  our  American  In 
dians,  and  the  prevalent  notions  of  civilizing  them ;  upon  which  he  has 
the  rational  opinions  that  nobody  can  entertain,  I  suspect,  but  one 
who  has  seen  them.  He  told  me,  too,  a  good  deal  about  his  journey 


M.  25.]  VILLEMAIN.  139 

across  Greece  that  interested  me,  and  a  good  deal  that  would  prevent 
my  undertaking  a  similar  excursion,  in  the  assurance  that  less  could 
be  learned  from  it  than  I  had  supposed. 

June  5.  —  Chateaubriand  called  on  me- this  morning,  and  asked 
me  to  visit  him  this  evening.     There  were  only  three  or  four  of  his 

friends  there,  for  Mad.  de  C is  ill.    He  talked  a  great  deal,  but  was 

not  so  much  excited  —  or,  as  the  French  call  it,  exalte  —  as  he  was  at 
Mad.  de  Stael's;  and,  if  he  was  more  reasonable  in  consequence,  he  was 
less  amusing.  His  character,  however,  appeared  more  amiable  to-night. 
He  talked  with  good-nature  and  candor  of  the  review  in  the  Mer- 
cure  that  cut  him  up  a  few  days  ago  so  terribly ;  played  with  his  cat 
as  simply  as  ever  Montaigne  did ;  and  went  often  to  see  how  his  wife 
did.  I  saw  him,  therefore,  in  a  new  point  of  view,  and  one  which  in 
terested  me  for  him  a  good  deal. 

June  12.  —  The  Duke  de  Broglie  and  Mons.  de  Stael,  who  had 
heard  of  my  affair  *  with  the  police  from  the  secretary  of  our  legation 
(to  whom  I  had  sent  a  note  upon  it),  called  on  me  this  morning, 
d  la  Franfaise,  to  express  their  regret,  etc.,  and  asked  me  to  dine, 
at  Mad.  de  Stael's,  with  Lafayette.  Nobody  else  was  there;  for 
Mad.  de  Stael  on  the  whole  grows  worse,  and  the  family  do  not  like 
to  see  much  company,  though  they  still  invite  some,  lest  she  should 
be  alarmed  more  than  her  situation  will  bear.  The  dinner  was  very 
sad.  Lafayette  asked  the  Duchess  some  questions  about  her  mother, 
but  it  was  more  than  she  could  bear,  and  she  was  obliged  to  leave  the 
table.  The  General  himself —  who  is  one  of  the  most  kind-hearted 
men  in  the  world — was  hardly  less  affected  at  finding  he  had  un-  • 
consciously  gone  too  far.  ....  I  was  indeed  glad  when  the  dinner 
was  ended. 

Jiine  16.  —  M.  Villemain,  of  the  Academy  of  Paris  Faculty  of 
Letters,  is  so  famous  an  instructor  that  I  have  long  intended  to  hear 
him,  but  have  been  prevented  until  this  morning.  He  is  now 
lecturing  on  French  eloquence,  in  a  desultory  and  amusing  manner 
I  should  think,  from  what  I  have  heard,  and  this  morning  he  was  on 
Rousseau's  Emile.  The  number  of  his  hearers  could  not  have  been 
less  than  three  hundred  and  fifty,  and  I  endeavored  to  find  out  what 
were  the  merits  or  attractions  which  give  him  such  an  extraordinary 
popularity.  They  are  certainly  neither  a  strong  and  vigorous  eloquence, 
like  Lacretelle's,  nor  amusing  anecdotes  and  witticisms  like  those  of 
Andrieux,  nor  severe  instruction  like  what  all  good  lectures  should 
contain,  for  he  evidently  neither  seeks  nor  possesses  these  merits  ; 

*  This  affair  is  explained  a  few  pages  farther  on. 


140  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1817. 

but  it  was  what  hits  the  French  taste  more  than  any  or  all  three  of 
them  :  it  was  an  unhesitating  fluency,  though  he  spoke  extemporan 
eously  and  without  notes,  a  great  choice  of  happy  and  sparkling 
phrases,  though  on  a  subject  the  most  difficult  to  apply  them  dis 
creetly,  and  an  abundance  of  epigrammatic  remarks,  which  seemed 
almost  like  arguments,  because  they  struck  the  imagination  so  forcibly, 
and  yet  were  nothing  less.  In  short,  it  was  a  kind  of  amusement 
which  ought  to  come  rather  under  the  great  and  indefinite  class  of 
what  is  called  in  France  spectacle,  than  what  in  any  country  should  be 
considered  a  part  of  public  instruction.  It  was,  however,  fine  of  the 
sort. 

The  evening  I  passed  delightfully  at  Chateaubriand's,  with  a  few 
of  his  friends ;  most  of  whom  were  members  of  the  House  of  Peers. 
He  was  in  high  spirits,  excited,  and  even  exalte,  and  poured  out  a 
torrent  of  rich  and  various  eloquence,  which  made  me  almost  think 
better  of  the  language  itself  than  I  am  accustomed  to. 

During  the  beginning  of  the  evening  the  conversation  turned  upon 
the  condition  of  Europe,  and  he  burst  upon  the  discussion  by  saying, 
"  Je  ne  crois  pas  dans  la  societe  Europeenne,"  and  supported  his  omi 
nous  proposition  with  a  kind  of  splendid  declamation,  to  which 
argument  would  have  lent  no  force.  "  In  fifty  years,"  said  he,  "  there 
will  not  be  a  legitimate  sovereign  in  Europe ;  from  Russia  to  Sicily, 
I  foresee  nothing  but  military  despotisms ;  and  in  a  hundred,  —  in 
a  hundred !  the  cloud  is  too  dark  for  human  vision  ;  too  dark,  it 
may  almost  be  said,  to  be  penetrated  by  prophecy.  Tliere  perhaps  is 
"the  misery  of  our  situation  ;  perhaps  we  live,  not  only  in  the  decrep 
itude  of  Europe,  but  in  the  decrepitude  of  the  world  "  ;  and  he  pro 
nounced  it  in  such  a  tone,  and  with  such  a  look,  that  a  dead  silence 
followed  it,  and  every  person  felt,  I  doubt  not,  with  me,  as  if  the 
future  had  become  uncertain  to  him.  In  a  few  moments,  from  a 
natural  impulse  of  selfishness,  the  question  arose,  what  an  individual 
should  do  in  such  a  situation.  Everbody  looked  to  Chateaubriand. 
"  If  I  were  without  a  family,  I  would  travel,  not  because  I  love  travel 
ling,  for  I  abhor  it,  but  because  I  long  to  see  Spain,  to  know  what 
effect  eight  years  of  civil  war  have  produced  there ;  and  I  long  to  see 
Russia,  that  I  may  better  estimate  the  power  that  threatens  to  over 
whelm  the  world.  When  I  had  seen  these  I  should  know  the  desti 
nies  of  Europe,  I  think  ;  and  then  I  would  go  and  fix  my  last  home 
at  Rome.  There  I  would  build  my  tabernacle,  there  I  would  build 
my  tomb,  and  there,  amid  the  ruins  of  three  empires  and  three  thou 
sand  years,  I  would  give  myself  wholly  to  my  God."  Now  there 


M.  25.]  VISIT  FROM  THE  POLICE.  141 

was  not  much  fanaticism  in  this  ;  it  was  the  out-breathed  despair  of 
the  heart  of  a  poet,  whose  family  has  been  exterminated  by  one  revo 
lution,  and  who  has  himself  been  sacrificed  to  another ;  and,  though  I 
do  not  think  of  the  destinies  of  Europe  and  the  world  very  much  as 
he  does,  yet  I  shall,  as  long  as  I  live,  respect  him  for  what  I  saw  of 
his  feelings  to-night. 

To  ELISHA  TICKNOB. 

PARIS,  June  13,  1817. 

....  You  tell  me,  in  whatever  country  I  am,  "  to  say  nothing 
against  its  government."  I  have  never  done  so,  least  of  all  in  France, 
where,  on  the  whole,  an  impartial  man  would  respect  the  present 
government  and  the  Bourbon  family;  and  yet  I  have  become,  by  some 
means  of  which  I  have  no  conjecture,  suspected  by  the  police  here. 
Just  as  I  was  finishing  my  French  lesson  (on  the  10th),  at  half-past 
six  A.M.,  two  persons  asked  to  see  me,  but  declined  giving  their  names. 
I  told  my  servant  to  admit  them.  The  oldest,  a  respectable-looking 
man,  asked  me  if  I  knew  him  ;  to  which  I  replied  in  the  negative ;  and 
then,  inquiring  whether  I  was  an  American  citizen,  he  said  he  wished  to 
speak  to  me  in  private  ;  upon  which  my  instructor  withdrew.  The 
stranger  then,  unbuttoning  his  coat,  showed  the  badge  of  the  police, 
and  presented  to  me  a  royal  order  signed  by  the  minister  of  police, 
requiring  him  to  take  the  justice  of  the  peace  of  my  quarter,  to  pro 
ceed  to  my  lodgings,  and  to  institute  a  "  severe  search  "  for  "  all  papers, 
libels  or  libellous  writings,  and  books  dangerous  to  the  government," 
—  to  seal  up  all  such  as  might  be  found  of  this  nature,  and  carry  them 
to  the  office  of  the  police. 

I  did  not  hesitate  a  moment  what  to  do.  The  commissaries  who 
were  standing  guard  outside  were  called  in.  I  opened  —  not  without 
making  a  proper  protest  against  the  outrage  —  my  drawers  and  my 
desk,  sat  myself  quietly  down,  and  told  them  to  do  what  they  saw 
fit,  upon  peril  of  their  responsibility.  The  search  occupied  until 
nearly  eleven  o'clock  ;  and,  after  reading  all  my  letters,  my  journal, 
my  copies,  etc.,  —  or  as  much  of  them  as  was  necessary  to  be  sure  they 
were  merely  domestic  and  commonplace,  —  they  finished  by  drawing 
up  a  proces  verbal  of  two  folio  pages,  saying,  as  you  may  well  suppose, 
that  they  had  found  nothing,  for  in  truth  there  was  nothing  to  find. 
On  parting  with  the  gentlemen,  I  read  them  a  lecture  on  the  nature 
of  the  fruitless  outrage  they  had  committed,  of  the  cause  of  which  they 
were  of  course  as  ignorant  as  myself  ;  and  the  justice  of  the  peace 
in  return  expressed  his  regrets,  and  his  conviction  that,  I  was  "  not  a 


142  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1817. 

dangerous  person  ! "  adding,  however,  that  while  I  remain  in  Paris, 
I  shall  be  under  the  surveillance  of  the  police.  The  search  was  rigor 
ous,  but  in  general  civilly  conducted. 

A  Greek  manuscript  gra veiled  them  a  little  ;  "for,  though  the  peace 
officer  was  a  well- instructed  man,  and  read  English  and  German,  he 
knew  nothing  of  Greek  ;  but  as  the  manuscript  was  from  the  royal 
library,  and  sanctified  by  the  arms  of  the  Bourbons,  they  were  easily 
satisfied.  One  of  the  men  was  impudent  to  me  about  my  curtains 
being  closed,  which  he  thought  were  kept  drawn,  not  so  much  for  the 
milder  light,  as  to  prevent  my  neighbors  from  seeing  what  was  going 
on.  But  except  that  I  had  no  difficulty  with  them. 

One  or  two  circumstances  in  the  transaction  are  rather  striking.  In 
the  first  place,  that  four  persons  should  be  sent  when  it  is  usual 
to  send  but  two,  as  I  am  told;  in  the  second  place,  Mr.  Warden 
says  this  is  the  first  instance  he  has  ever  known  that  an  American 
citizen  has  been  subjected  to  such  an  insult  and  outrage  as  to  have  a 
search  of  any  kind  made  in.  his  quarters  ;  also  the  form  of  the  order 
itself  was  uncommon.  It  was  a  printed  paper,  the  blanks  of  which 
were  filled  by  some  secretary,  and  the  whole  signed  by  the  minister. 
The  minister,  however,  had  gone  over  and  corrected  it  in  his  own 
handwriting;  had  added  "libels  or  libellous  writings";  and,  instead 
of  the  words  "  perquisition  exacte,"  had  substituted  "  perquisition 
severe,"  which  was  no  doubt  the  reason  why  the  officers  proceeded  so 
rigorously. 

The  fact  is,  I  have  been  denounced,  but  not  in  consequence  of  any 
letters,  and  not  by  any  one  who  knows  me  well,  for  my  name  was 
spelt  wrong  in  the  order,  "  Bignor  " ;  but  there  is  no  doubt  I  was  the  per 
son  intended,  as  my  lodgings  and  citizenship  were  rightly  designated. 
This  gives  me  great  comfort ;  for  it  must  be  some  vulgar  spy,  and  riot 
my  servant  or  any  one  whom  I  see  often,  —  otherwise  I  should  have 
been  suspicious  of  everybody  who  approaches  me. 

However,  it  is  all  over.  I  wrote  a  note  to  the  American  legation, 
stating  the  facts,  the  morning  after  it  all  happened,  and  when  Mr. 
Gallatin  returns  in  a  few  days  from  Geneva  I  shall  call  upon  him. 
The  secretary  offered  to  write  immediately  to  the  French  minister, 
but  I  told  him  I  thought  it  better  to  wait  till  Mr.  Gallatin  arrives ; 
though  I  have  no  idea  that  any  satisfaction,  or  apology  even,  will  be 
obtained  under  any  circumstances. 

I  need  not  say,  my  dear  father  and  mother,  that  there  is  nothing  in 
all  this  which  should  give  you  a  moment's  uneasiness.  The  govern 
ment  has  done  all  it  can,  and  is,  of  course,  satisfied  that  my  apparent 


M.  25.]  MR.   GALLATIN.  143 

objects  here  are  my  real  ones.  I  may  or  may  not  be  watched  a  little 
while  by  some  of  their  familiars  ;  but,  you  know,  watching  is  un 
availing  where  there  is  nothing  to  discover ;  and,  as  I  shall  not  change 
my  conduct  in  the  least,  because  there  is  nothing  in  it  either  wrong 
or  suspicious,  I  shall  soon  put  to  rest  any  doubts  that  may  remain. 
My  letters,  like  all  Mr.  Wells's  between  Paris  and  Havre,  never  pass 
through  the  post-office ;  so,  if  I  had  written  treason,  the  ministry  would 
never  have  been  the  wiser  for  it. 

It  has  been  suggested  to  me  that  my  habit  of  staying  at  home  all 
day  and  going  out  in  the  evening,  visiting  no  public  places,  and  know 
ing  such  men  as  Count  Gregoire,  Benjamin  Constant,  the  Marquis 
de  Lafayette,  Gallois,  etc.,  may  have  drawn  this  inquisition  upon  me. 
It  is  possible,  but  I  doubt  it. 

You  will  understand,  of  course,  that  the  object  of  the  government 
was  to  find  correspondence,  etc.,  with  refugees  in  America  ;  of  this 
there  is  no  doubt.  How  I  came  to  be  suspected  of  it  is  a  mystery 
which  will  never  be  explained  to  me. 

June  23,  1817. 

In  my  last  letter  I  spoke  of  a  visit  and  search  to  which  I  had  been 

subjected  from  the  French  police Since  the  visitation  I  have 

not  been  molested,  except  that  several  of  my  letters  have  been  broken 
open  ;  and,  as  to  the  surveillance,  I  doubt  whether  it  has  been  really 
carried  into  effect,  except  in  regard  to  my  correspondence.  Mr.  Gal- 
latin  returned  from  Geneva  two  days  ago,  and,  after  calling  upon  me 
himself  when  I  was  out,  civilly  sent  his  secretary  to  desire  me  to  come 
to  him,  and  give  him  some  account  of  this  extraordinary  insult  to  my 
citizenship.  I  shall  go  this  morning,  but  that  will  be  the  end  of  the 
whole  affair ;  for,  even  if  he  should  take  the  matter  more  seriously  in 
hand  than  he  will  think  prudent  or  I  should  desire,  he  would  obtain 
no  apology  or  explanation. 

July  13, 1817. 

My  affair  with  the  police  has  come  to  so  singular  a  conclusion  that, 
after  all  I  have  said  about  it,  I  cannot  choose  but  finish  its  history. 
Yesterday  morning  Mr.  Gallatin  came  to  see  me  rather  earlier  than 
it  is  common  to  make  visits,  and,  on  entering  my  room,  seemed  not  a 
little  embarrassed.  After  considerable  curious  hesitation,  he  drew 
from  his  pocket  a  paper,  gave  it  to  me,  and  said,  with  the  abrupt 
haste  of  a  man  desirous  to  get  quickly  through  a  business  he  does  not 
like  to  begin,  "  That  is  the  letter,  sir,  I  wrote  to  the  Duke  de  Kiche- 
lieu  on  your  case."  I  read  it.  It  was  a  simple  statement  of  the 
facts,  followed  by  some  remarks  on  the  nature  of  the  outrage,  much 


144  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1817. 

more  high-toned  than  I  thought  it  demanded,  or  than  I  supposed  a 
man  as  cool  and  calculating  as  Mr.  Gallatin  would  have  made.  "  Are 
those  the  facts,  sir  ? "  I  said  they  were.  "  Well,  sir,"  he  continued, 
"  there  is  the  answer  I  received  half  an  hour  agw."  On  reading  it,  I 
found  the  Duke  de  Richelieu  had  informed  him  that  his  letter  had 
been  transmitted  immediately  to  the  Minister  of  Police,  who  had 
caused  search  to  be  made  in  his  office,  and  in  the  office  of  the  Pre 
fecture  of  the  Police  for  Paris,  to  find  the  records  of  the  case  ;  that 
none  such  had  been  found  ;  that  of  course  the  search  in  question 
must  have  been  made  by  persons  unknown  to  the  police  ;  and  that 
if  the  American  minister  would  ascertain  who  they  were,  and  would 
transmit  their  names  to  the  Office  of  State,  they  should  be  immediately 
punished  as  such  an  unauthorized  outrage  deserved.  I  was  thunder 
struck  ;  not  because  I  imagined  a  trick  had  been  played  upon  me,  like 
that  performed  by  the  pretended  inquisitors  on  Gil  Bias,  but  because 
my  word  was  now  at  stake  against  that  of  the  Minister  of  Police,  and 
at  the  same  time  I  did  not  know  how  I  could  prove  my  statement. 
Mr.  Gallatin  asked  me  if  I  still  supposed  the  persons  to  be  officers  of 
the  police.  I  told  him  I  did  not  doubt  it  in  the  least,  for  that  they  had 
done  their  business  like  men  who  were  accustomed  to  do  it  every  day. 
"  Do  you  know  the  names  of  any  of  them  ? "  "  No,"  I  answered  ; 
but  I  did  not  doubt  that  one  was  the  police-officer  of  my  quarter, 
and  described  him  as  a  man  of  fifty  or  upwards,  fat,  gray-headed,  and 
bald  ;  so  that,  on  finding  such  a  person,  Mr.  Gallatin  might  be  sure 
there  was  no  deception  or  mistake.  For,  though  I  do  not  think  he 
doubted  my  veracity,  yet  his  situation  was  so  embarrassing,  after  a 
flat  denial  of  his  statement,  that  he  really  did  not  know  what  to  be 
lieve  or  to  do.  I  told  him  I  would,  if  possible,  find  the  commissary, 
and  he  proposed  to  go  with  me  to  his  house.  He  was  not  at  home, 
but  his  wife  said  he  should  come  to  Mr.  Gallatin's  at  four  o'clock, 
and  I  agreed  to  meet  him  there,  and  verify  him.  The  three  hours 
that  intervened,  you  may  be  sure,  I  passed  rather  uncomfortably ;  for, 
if  this  were  not  the  man,  I  knew  not  where  to  go  for  confirmation, 
and  must  stand  convicted.  Before  four  o'clock  I  was  at  Mr.  Gallatin's 
hotel,  but  I  was  too  late  ;  the  man  had  been  there  at  three.  Mr. 
Gallatin  recognized  him  at  once  from  my  description,  and  said  boldly, 
"  I  understand  you  are  the  person  who  made  a  search,  some  time  since, 
of  Mr.  Ticknor's  papers,  etc.,  in  the  Rue  Taranne,  No.  10."  After 
reflecting  a  moment,  the  man  said  '•  Yes,"  he  had  done  it ;  saying,  at 
the  same  time,  "  that  he  did  not  know  the  causes  of  it ;  that  he  hoped 
I  did  not  complain  of  the  manner  in  which  it  was  done,  etc."  Mr. 


JE.  25.]  HUMBOLDT.  145 

Gallatin  assured  him  that  it  was  not  to  know  the  causes,  or  to  com 
plain  of  the  manner,  that  he  had  desired  to  see  him,  but  to  ascertain 
the  fact,  and  gave  him  the  Duke  de  Richelieu's  letter.  On  reading  it, 
Mr.  Gallatin  said,  he'  was  first  very  much  alarmed  at  finding  he  had 
confessed  something  he  should  not  have  told,  and  then  very  angry 
that  his  conduct  was  thus  disavowed.  "  But,"  said  Mr.  Gallatin, 
"  can  there  be  no  mistake  ? "  "  Certainly  not,"  said  the  officer  ;  "  for 
the  order  was  directed  to  an  American  citizen,  living  in  the  Rue 
Taranne,  No.  10  ;  and,  though  there  was  a  mistake  in  the  name,  it  was 
only  a  mistake  in  spelling  it,  and  I  mentioned  this  circumstance  ex 
pressly  in  my  proces  verbal,  which  Mr.  Ticknor  also  signed  himself, 
and  therefore  they  know  it  all,  as  well  as  you  and  I  do,  and  I  can 
prove  it,  and  exculpate  myself,  unless  they  have  destroyed  my  proems 
verbal."  He  ended  by  saying  that  he  hoped  I  should  not  push  the 
affair  any  further,  which  certainly  would  be  best  for  him,  though  I 
doubt  not  he  acted  with  perfect  prudence  under  his  instructions. 

There,  then,  the  matter  rests.  I  told  Mr.  Gallatin  that  I  felt  no 
further  interest  in  it,  and  he  replied  that  nothing  could  now  be  done, 
but  to  write  to  the  Minister,  and  give  him  the  name  of  the  commissary, 
which  he  felt  so  reluctant  to  do  that  perhaps  he  should  not  do  it  at  all. 
I  acquiesced  the  more  gladly,  as  this  was  precisely  the  man  who  had 
behaved  most  civilly ;  and  thus,  I  presume,  the  affair  ends.  If  it  were 
carried  further,  the  reply,  no  doubt,  would  be,  that  it  was  a  mistake 
arising  from  similarity  of  names,  which  would  be  as  true  as  that  the 
examination  of  my  papers  was  unauthorized. 

In  the  Journal,  the  account  of  this  singular  visitation  is  almost 
identical  with  this,  —  perhaps  with  less  vivacity  ;  but,  under  the 
date  of  June  1 9th,  there  is  this  passage  :  — 

At  last,  I  believe  I  have  found  out  the  cause  of  my  difficulty  with 
the  police.  M.  de  Humboldt,  having  heard  of  the  visitation,  called 
on  me  this  morning,  for  the  express  purpose  of  cautioning  me  against  an 
Englishman,  whom  we  have  both  met  at  Benjamin  Constant's.  He  has 
lived  in  Paris  fifteen  years,  and  is  well  known  as  a  spy.  M.  de  Hum 
boldt  adds  that  he  is  very  ill-tempered,  and  that  he  never  passes  an 
evening  in  his  company  without  recalling,  at  home,  everything  he  has 
said,  to  know  whether  possibly  he  may  have  exposed  himself  at  all. 
With  this  man  I  had  a  slight  argument  at  Constant's,  one  evening,  on 
German  literature,  in  which  Constant  took  my  side  ;  but  the  thing 
went  but  a  little  way,  as  the  Englishman  showed  ill-feeling,  and  I 
chose  to  remain  silent.  Humboldt  remarked  it,  and  said  he  thought 

VOL.  i.  7  3 


146  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1817. 

at  the  time  that  the  fellow  would  play  me  a  trick  if  he  had  the 
opportunity.  What  Humboldt  did  not  know  until  I  told  him,  is, 
that  I  met  this  Englishman,  a  few  evenings  before  the  perquisition,  at 
Chateaubriand's,  when  the  conversation  turning  on  the  French  refu 
gees  in  America,  I  said  they  were  not  received  there  with  the  enthu 
siasm  that  is  generally  supposed  in  Europe.  The  Englishman  denied 
this  with  uncommon  promptness,  and  alleged,  in  proof,  that  a  great 
dinner  had  been  given  to  them  in  Boston.  A  charge  of  this  kind, 
upon  a  town  which  had  sung  a  solemn  Te  Deum  for  Bonaparte's 
defeats  in  Russia,  and  made  an  illumination  for  the  restoration  of  the 
Bourbons,  naturally  vexed  me,  and  I  told  him  and  Chateaubriand 
very  circumstantially  how  things  stood.  The  Englishman  made  no 
reply,  but  was  evidently  displeased,  especially  at  the  decided  satisfac 
tion  Chateaubriand  expressed.  If,  then,  he  is  a  spy,  I  doubt  not  he  is 
the  person  who  denounced  me,  not,  perhaps,  because  he  thought  me 
dangerous  or  wished  to  revenge  on  me  the  little  disputes  I  had  with 
him,  —  though  M.  de  Humboldt  believes  him  capable  even  of  this,  — 
but  because  his  bread  depends  on  the  information  he  gives,  and  he 
would  be  as  well  paid  for  denouncing  me,  as  for  denouncing  any  one 
else. 

On  the  27th  July,  Mr.  Ticknor  says  :  "From  the  early  part 
of  July  almost  all  my  French  friends  had  left  Paris,  and  I  was 
very  solitary,  except  that  I  had  acquaintances  more  or  less  inti 
mate  among  Americans."  The  remainder  of  his  residence  in  Paris 
he  gave  to  a  careful  study  of  the  public  places  and  institutions  of 
the  city,  writing  elaborate  and  historical  notes  on  what  he  sa-w. 
In  August,  he  made  two  visits  at  Draveil,  the  chateau  of  Mr. 
Parker,  an  American  gentleman,  who  had  lived  in  France  for 
thirty  years. 

JOURNAL. 

It  is  a  fine  establishment,  worthy  of  an  English  nobleman  from  its 
magnitude,  its  completeness,  and  its  hospitality.  Several  persons 
who  interested  or  amused  me  were  staying  there,  and  the  days  passed 

pleasantly  in  driving  about  the  neighborhood Once  I  went 

with  the  ladies  to  see  Marshal  Davoust,  who  lives  at  a  fine  chateau 
about  three  leagues  from  Draveil.  Mad.  Davoust  received  us,  the 
Marshal  having  gone  out  hunting.  She  is  a  good-looking  woman  of 
some  cultivation.  When  her  husband  was  absent,  she  shut  herself 
up,  and  received  no  company.  So  once,  when  she  went  to  court  with 


-SL  25.]  MARSHAL  DAVOUST.  147 

her  husband,  after  such  a  seclusion,  Bonaparte  asked  her,  "  Eh  bien, 
ma  belle  Princesse  d'Eckmuhl,  pour  combien  avez-vous  vendu  votre 
foin,  cette  annee  ? " 

We  fell  accidentally  into  a  discussion  almost  political,  and  as  noth 
ing  touches  the  French  and  the  Bonapartists  like  the  loss  of  the  battle 
of  Waterloo,  she  began  to  give  me  reasons  for  it.  I  could  have  given 
her  better,  if  it  would  have  been  polite  ;  but  one  she  gave  was  curious, 
as  an  authentic  anecdote.  To  prove  that  the  Emperor  was  ill  that 
Jay,  she  said  he  did  not  rise  until  seven  o'clock,  and  never  spoke  while 
he  dressed.  When  his  secretary  gave  him  his  sword,  he  drew  it  with 
a  sigh,  and  then,  thrusting  it  back  into  the  scabbard,  said  with  an 
air  of  weariness  he  had  never  shown  before,  "  Encore  une  bataille !  " 
sprang  upon  his  horse  and  hurried  to  the  field,  as  if  more  impatient 
to  finish  the  day  than  anxious  how  it  should  be  finished.  This  sin 
gular  conversation  came  at  last  to  the  most  delicate  of  all  topics,  — 
the  conduct  of  the  Prince  himself  at  Hamburg  ;  and,  as  I  had  made 
up  my  mind  upon  the  subject  in  Germany,  I  suppose  she  perceived 
my  impression  in  spite  of  me,  for  she  said  that,  as  she  should  like  to 
have  me  know  the  truth,  she  would  send  me  the  Marshal's  defence. 
Just  at  this  moment  the  Marshal  met  us  in  the  avenue,  with  Jlis 
rifle  on  his  back,  his  collar  unbuttoned,  and  his  whole  dress  careless 
and  dirty.  .  He  is  a  tall,  stout  man,  with  black  hair  and  eyes,  and 
very  bald.  There  is  little  appearance  of  talent  in  his  physiognomy, 
but  there  is  something  imposing  in  his  air  and  manner,  though  per 
haps  it  is  nothing  more  than  the  remains  of  the  command  he  exer 
cised  so  long.  With  this  there  was  politeness  and  even  an  air  of 
mildness,  that  surprised  me  not  a  little  in  the  man  who  commanded 
at  Hamburg  in  1813.  In  conversation  he  seemed  moderate,  talked 
freely  on  all  subjects  but  politics  ;  .  .  .  .  but,  on  leaving  him,  I  re 
membered  very  little  he  had  said,  except  that,  in  alluding  to  the 
troubles  in  South  America,  he  said  almost  impatiently,  "  Je  ne  crois 
plus  aux  revolutions  !"  A  few  days  afterwards,  the  Mare"chale  re 
turned  the  visit  of  the  ladies,  and  brought  the  defence  of  her  husband 
presented  to  the  king.  It  is  plain  and  simple,  and  showed  that  his 
orders  from  the  Emperor  were  such  as  would  have  justified  any  general 
oppressions  and  cruelty,  though  I  think  hardly  such  special  instances 
of  inhumanity  as  I  have  heard  of. 


148  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1817. 

To  MBS.  WALTER  CHANNING. 

PARIS,  August  1,  1817. 

....  I  have  been  above  a  week  at  Mr.  Parker's,  at  Draveil,  about 
twelve  miles  from  Paris,  a  superb  establishment,  whose  completeness 
splendor,  and  hospitality,  equally  struck  me.  Several  persons  were 
staying  there  at  the  same  time  that  I  was,  and  among  them  two  French 
ladies  remarkably  well  instructed,  one  of  whom  has  a  great  deal  of 
talent,  so  that  there  was  no  want  of  society  such  as  I  most  desire  to 
have.  I  used  to  get  up  early  and  occupy  myself  with  my  books  in 
my  chamber  until  noon ;  then  I  came  down,  and  the  French  lady  I  men 
tion  gave  me  a  regular  lesson  in  reading  French,  which,  among  her 
other  accomplishments,  she  had  learned  to  read  and  declaim  with  un 
common  elegance  and  power.  After  this  we  commonly  went  to  ride, 
either  round  the  superb  park  which  surrounds  the  house,  or  in  a 
wood  near  it,  where  there  is  an  oak  called  the  Pere  de  la  Foret, 
preserved  in  memory  of  the  times  when  Gabrielle  d'Estrees  and 
Henry  IV.  used  to  sit  under  its  shade.  After  dinner  one  of  the  ladies 
always  played  on  the  piano,  which  in  the  course  of  the  last  year  I 
have  not  only  learned  to  like,  but  have  learned  to  understand  music 
so  far  that  I  can  distinguish  between  that  of  the  different  nations  in 
general,  and  have  taste  enough  to  prefer  Italian  and  German  to  either 
French,  which  I  find  frivolous,  or  English,  which  seems  to  me  un 
meaning.  At  sunset  always  came  a  walk,  —  not  as  in  our  own  more 
decisive  climate,  where  the  sun  goes  down 

"  Arraying  in  reflected  purple  and  gold  , 

The  clouds  that  on  his  western  throne  attend," 

but  still  beautiful,  as  sunset  must  be  everywhere,  and  followed  by  a 
prolonged,  transparent,  distinct  twilight,  such  as  is  unknown  in  our 
more  heavy  atmosphere.  The  evening  always  brought  us  together  in 
a  little  parlor,  and  it  passed  away  too  quickly  in  work  and  reading. 

French  was  the  language  of  conversation,  but  all  the  party  under 
stood  English,  and  therefore  Shakespeare  and  Milton  came  in  for 
their  share.  This  naturally  produced  discussions  of  the  relative  merits 
of  the  two  literatures  ;  and,  though  I  found  myself  alone,  you  do  credit 
enough  to  my  obstinacy,  if  Walter  will  not  to  my  taste,  to  believe  I  did 
not  shrink  from  maintaining  the  supremacy  of  English  literature  in  de 
fiance  of  them  all The  affair  ended  by  a  challenge,  given  and 

accepted,  to  stake  Shakespeare  and  Milton  against  the  whole  body  of 
French  poetry.  The  French  party  was  to  begin  by  reading  the  best 


J&  26.]  FRENCH  THEATRE.  149 

passages  in  their  language,  taking  none  but  of  the  very  first  order,  and 
I  undertook  to  reply  passage  by  passage,  and  page  by  page,  taking  only 
my  two  favorites.  All  the  morning  the  ladies  were  in  council  with 
Voltaire,  Racine,  Corneille,  —  in  short,  a  whole  library.  In  the  even 
ing  they  covered  the  table  with  books  till  there  was  not  room  to  put 
down  a  pin-cushion,  and  were  a  little  abashed  to  find  I  took  from  my 
pocket  nothing  but  your  little  "  Paradise  Lost,"  which  alone  exhausted 
their  three  great  authors.  In  short,  in  four  evenings  they  had  no 
more  passages  of  the  first  order  of  poetry  to  offer,  and  I  had  still 
Shakespeare's  best  plays  in  reserve,  so  that  I  prevailed  on  putting  the 
vote,  by  four  to  two,  without  counting  myself.  .... 

Farewell, 

GEORGE. 

To  DR.  WALTER  CHAINING. 

PARIS,  August  12,  1817. 

....  If  you  wish  to  have  my  opinion  of  the  French  theatre,  I  am 
perfectly  ready  to  say  that  it  affords  an  entertainment  such  as  I  have 
never  known  elsewhere,  and  for  the  most  natural  of  all  reasons,  — 
because  it  is  more  cultivated  and  more  important  here  ;  because  it 
enters  much  more  deeply  and  intimately  into  the  system  of  life,  and 
instead  of  being  an  accidental  amusement,  it  is  an  every-day  want. 
I  do  not  speak  now  of  their  tragedy,  which  wants  force  and  passion, 
and  pleases  me  little  ;  it  has  all  the  beauties  of  an  inimitable  diction, 
but  as  to  the  ordinary  pretence  of  the  French  men  of  letters  that  it  is 
the  continuation  and  perfection  of  the  Greek,  I  think  it  entirely  false. 
How,  for  instance,  can  they  compare  a  theatre,  of  which  a  story  is 
related  like  that  of  the  first  representation  of  the  Eumenides  of 
^Eschylus,  with  a  theatre  of  proprieties  and  conventions  1  A  Greek 
was  not  more  unlike  a  Frenchman  than  the  theatres  of  the  two 
nations.  But  in  respect  to  the  comedy,  I  cannot  avoid  agreeing  with 
the  French  critics.  In  fact,  it  seems  to  me  to  make  a  genus  in  the 
drama  by  itself,  and  it  is  a  great  injustice  to  it  to  call  it  by  the  same 
name  that  is  worn  by  other  genera  in  other  nations.  "  The  Misan 
thrope,"  for  instance,  or  "  Tartuffe,"  have  but  little  in  common  with 
the  English  comedy,  except  inasmuch  as  Sheridan  and  a  few  others 
have  imitated  the  French  ;  and  still  less  can  the  intriguing  comedy 
of  Spain,  or  the  vulgar  buffoonery  of  Italy,  pretend  to  a  relation 
ship. 

This  excellency  of  the  French  comedy  is,  too,  very  natural  and 


150  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1816. 

probable  d  priori.  Their  national  character  furnishes  more  material 
for  it  than  can  be  found  anywhere  else ;  the  forms  of  society  and  the 
tone  of  their  conversation  partake  just  enough  of  the  nature  of  a 
representation  to  fit  them  admirably  for  the  stage,  and  their  light  and 
flexible  and  equivocal  language  lends  itself  to  express  comical  shades 
and  inflections,  of  which  all  others  are  incapable,  while  at  the  same 
time  the  foppery  and  gallantry  of  their  actors,  and  the  levity  and  the 
coquetry  of  their  actresses,  are  so  natural  and  piquant,  because 
they,  like  the  nation  they  belong  to,  are  playing  the  same  parts  all 
day  in  common  life  that  they  represent  to  the  public  in  the  evening. 

Do  not  misunderstand  me.  I  do  not  regret  that  we  have  none  of 
this  comedy  in  English,  for  I  deprecate  the  character  and  principles 
out  of  which  it  grows,  and  should  lose  no  inconsiderable  proportion 
of  my  hope  for  England  and  America,  if  they  had  reached  or  were 
approaching  that  ominous  state  of  civilization  and  refinement  in 

which  it  is  produced After  all,  I  had  rather  go  to  the  French 

theatre  than  the  English,  as  an  entertainment.  Shakespeare  and 
Milton  have  more  poetry  than  all  France  can  show  from  the  time  of 
the  Troubadours  and  Fabliaux  to  Delille  and  Chateaubriand ;  but  no 
nation,  I  think,  has  hit  like  them  the  exact  tone  and  grace  of  theatri 
cal  representation. 

My  love  to  all ;  and  save  me  a  corner  in  your  new,  old  house  in 
Summer  Street,  where  I  may  feel  at  home  when  I  come  among  you. 

GEO. 


M.  26.]  LA.  GRANGE.  151 


CHAPTEE    VII. 

Mr.  Ticknor  leaves  Paris.  —  Visit  to  La  Grange.  —  Geneva.  —  M.  de  la 
Rive.  —  Professor  Pictet.  —  Sir  Francis  d'lvernois.  —  Bonstetten.  — 
F6te  by  a  Russian  Countess.  —  Madame  Neckar  de  Saussure.  —  Leaves 
Geneva  for  Rome.  —  Convent  of  St.  Bernard.  —  Milan.  —  Venice.  — 
Visit  to  Lord  Byron.  —  Bologna.  —  Loretto.  —  Arrival  in  Rome. 

JOURNAL. 

SEPTEMBER  2.  —This  morning  I  left  Paris,  and  I  have  not  left 
^O  any  city  with  so  little  regret.  A  few  friends,  indeed,  I  have  left 
there,  to  whom  I  owe  many  favors  and  much  genuine  kindness ;  but 
I  never  knew  so  many  people,  and  knew  them  so  long,  where  I 
found  so  much  occasion  to  be  familiar,  and  so  little  to  be  intimate ; 
where  there  was  so  much  to  amuse,  and  so  little  to  attach  my  affec 
tions. 

Two  of  those  who  have  seemed  to  take  the  most  interest  in  me,  and 
whose  kindness  I  shall  never  forget,  —  the  Duke  de  Broglie  and  Au- 
guste  de  Stael,  —  proposed  to  me  to  accompany  them  to  La  Grange, 
where  they  were  to  visit  General  Lafayette,  without  company.  The 
General  had  often  invited  me  to  visit  him,  and  as  his  chateau  is  not 
far  from  the  route  I  was  to  follow  to  Switzerland  I  accompanied 
them. 

I  was  much  touched  this  morning  by  the  Duke's  kindness,  in  having 
asked  M.  Sismondi  to  meet  me  at  breakfast,  he  having  arrived  last 
evening  only,  from  Geneva,  and  whom  I  could  not  otherwise  have 
seen.  He  is  about  fifty,  a  plain  man  in  his  manners  and  in  his  con 
versation,  not  affecting  the  appearance  of  a  petit  maltre,  nor  the  repu 
tation  of  a  wit,  like  the  Paris  men  of  letters. 

We  had  a  pleasant  drive  of  five  hours,  and  arrived  in  the  after 
noon  at  La  Grange,  near  Rosoy,  in  the  department  of  the  Seine-et- 
Marne.  It  is  the  most  venerable  castle  I  have  seen  in  France.  The 
sweet  little  Duchess  de  Broglie  was  already  there  ;  more  interesting 
than  ever  from  her  affliction,*  which,  from  her  perfect  openness  of 

*  The  death  of  Mad.  de  Stael. 


152  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1817. 

character,  she  hardly  attempts  to  conceal.  Coming  with  persons  I 
knew  so  well,  and  to  an  establishment  where  everything  is  arranged 
as  if  on  purpose  for  the  most  open  hospitality,  I  soon  felt,  as  it  were, 
ut  home. 

It  is  impossible  to  know  General  Lafayette  in  Paris  and  the 
world  without  feeling  respect  for  his  enthusiasm  of  character,  his 
unalterable  honesty,  and  his  open  simplicity ;  but  it  is  impossible  to 
see  him  in  the  country,  in  his  home  and  in  his  family,  without 
loving  him.  He  is  now  sixty,  with  the  constitution,  health,  and  ap 
pearance  of  forty-five.  His  wife  is  dead ;  and  as  his  three  children,  a 
son  and  two  daughters,  were  married,  he  gave  them  a  part  of  his 
fortune,  and  begged  them  to  live  with  him  as  much  as  they  could. 

LAUSANNE,  September  6. — I  passed  three  short  and  happy  days  at 
La  Grange Everybody  rose  at  the  time  he  pleased,  and  break 
fasted  at  the  hour  he  chose,  in  his  own  room,'  or  at  half  past  nine 
with  the  family.  In  the  morning  we  drove  or  walked,  and  those 
who  did  not  choose  to  remain  in  their  chambers  went  to  the  salon, 
where  company  was  always  to  be  found.  Dinner  at  half  past  five ; 
somewhat  later  the  household  went  to  their  apartments,  but  all  met 
in  the  salon  at  ten  and  passed  two  very  happy  hours  together. 

GENEVA,  September  10. — This  evening  I  passed  at  Mad.  Rilliet's, 
to  whom  the  Duchess  de  Broglie  gave  me  a  letter.  She  was  a  par 
ticular  friend  of  Mad.  de  StaeTs,  and  is  a  lady  of  large  fortune,  much 
talent,  and  elegant  manners.  Benjamin  Constant  said  of  her,  with 
that  kind  of  wit  peculiar  to  the  French,  and  which  he  possesses  be 
yond  any  Frenchman  I  met  in  Paris,  "Mad.  Billiet  a  toutes  les 
vertus  qu'elle  affecte "  ;  for  there  is  a  certain  stateliness  and  pre 
tension  in  her  manner  that  reminds  you  of  affectation. 

September  11.  —I  dined  to-day  with  M.  de  la  Rive,  to  whom  I  had 
an  introduction  from  Sir  Humphry  Davy.  He  is  a  specimen,  I 
suppose,  of  the  state  of  society,  manners,  and  improvement  in  Ge 
neva  which  deserves  notice.  In  the  first  place,  his  fortune  is  large, 
and  yet  he  lives  without  luxury ;  for  wealth  is  often  expressed  here 
chiefly  in  simple  hospitality.  He  is  the  representative  of  one  of  the 
oldest  families  of  the  republic,  and  yet  he  is  devoted  to  science,  —  a 
man  of  genius  and  learning,  and  actually  a  public  lecturer  of  emi 
nence  on  chemistry.  And  finally,  with  all  these  strong  occupations, 
and  tastes,  and  high  qualities,  he  is  the  chief  magistrate  of  the  canton, 
and  a  most  respectable  and  amiable  man,  living  happily  in  his  home, 
and  loved  by  his  friends. 


M.  26.]  SIR  FRANCIS  D'lVERNOIS.  153 

After  dinner,  he  carried  me  to  Prof.  Pictet's,  the  worthy  successor  of 
De  Saussure  in  the  University,  and  the  chief  man  in  the  Bibliotheque 
Britannique.  We  stayed  only  a  little  while,  and  then  went  a  mile 
out  of  town,  to  M.  Favre  Bertrand's,  where  I  was  introduced  by 
Auguste  Schlegel,  and  where  we  passed  a  delightful  evening.  Here 
again  I  found  a  fine  specimen  of  Genevan  character.  M.  Favre  is 
the  richest,  or  one  of  the  richest,  citizens  of  Geneva,  and  lives  here  in  a 
beautiful  establishment  on  the  borders  of  the  lake,  but  it  is  as  simple 
us  it  is  beautiful ;  there  is  no  appearance  of  luxury,  no  pretension  in 
his  manners,  and  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  any  indication  of  a  large 
fortune,  except  in  his  fine  library,  and  in  the  leisure  it  has  given  him, 
through  which  he  has  gained  an  elegant  and  scientific  cultivation. 

September  12.  —  I  went  to-day  with  Sir  Francis  d'lvernois,  to  dine 
at  his,  country-place,  a  few  miles  from  town.  He  is  the  man  who  was 
famous  in  Russia,  who  was  knighted  in  England,  and  who  has  been 
one  of  the  prominent  citizens  of  Geneva  since  the  fall  of  Bonaparte 
has  permitted  him  to  return  from  exile,  and  he  is  now  one  of  the 
important  members  of  the  Council  of  State.  There  were  several 
other  members  of  the  Council  there,  and  the  President  de  la  Rive ;  so 
that  the  dinner  was  very  pleasant,  and  I  heard  many  things  which  I 
have  not  time  to  write  down,  but  which  I  should  be  sorry  to  forget. 

Sir  Francis,  with  a  kind  of  hospitality  which  I  begin  to  think 
belongs  to  the  republican  character,  carried,  me  to  tea  at  M. 
Pictet  Deodati's,  brother  of  Prof.  Pictet,  and  chief-justice  of  the 
canton :  a  plain,  sensible  gentleman,  who  reminded  me  of  the  same 
class  of  persons  in  America.  I  passed  a  couple  of  hours  happily  at 
his  house,  and  then,  with  the  same  sort  of  hospitality  which  had 
brought  me  to  him,  he  ordered  his  carriage  and  took  me  to  Geneva,  to 
a  ball  at  Mad.  de  Saussure's,  a  distant  relation  of  the  famous  De 
.Saussure  who  first  ascended  Mont  Blanc.  I  found  there  many 
English,  and  much  of  the  fashionable  and  respectable  society  of  the 
city;  and  I  observed  that  the  ladies  were  handsomer  than  at  Paris, 
but  not  so  graceful ;  and  seemingly  more  genuinely  and  simply  kind 
and  amiable,  but  not  so  ostentatiously  gracious. 

Among  other  strangers,  I  found  Simond,  author  of  the  Travels  in 
England,  a  man  of  fifty,  talking  little,  but  in  such  a  manner  as  to 
make  others  talk  to  him;  with  few  apparent  prejudices,  and  yet  in 
all  respects  a  decisive  way  of  thinking  and  judging. 

September  13.  —  The  Baron  de  Bonstetten,  formerly  in  the  govern 
ment  of  Berne,  but  a  Genevan,  and  the  author  of  several  metaphysical 
and  political  works,  has  been  uncommonly  kind  to  me  ever  since  I  have 


154  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1817- 

been  in  Geneva.  To-day  he  invited  me  to  a  dinner,  where  I  found 
myself  surrounded  by  the  corpus  Academicum,  and  a  representation 
of  the  Bibliotheque  Britannique.  I  was  struck  with  the  exhibition 
of  talent  I  witnessed,  and  particularly  with  De  Candolle,  professor  of 
botany,  who  has  great  powers  of  conversation,  without  that  perpetual 
attempt  at  brilliancy  and  epigram  which  I  found  in  Paris  society, 
and  which  I  have  found  here  only  in  Dumont. 

In  the  evening  I  went  to  a  large  party  at  Dr.  Buttini's,  the  first 
physician  in  Geneva.  ,  I  found  most  of  the  society  I  met  last  evening, 
but  was  so  much  interested  by,  the  conversation  of  President  de  la 
Kive  that  I  made  few  new  acquaintances. 

September  14.  — A  Kussian  Countess  Bruess  is  living  here,  and  finding 
it  difficult  to  spend  an  income  —  said  to  be  a  million  of  francs  a  year 
—  amuses  herself  with  giving  such  entertainments  as  the  simple 
Genevans  rarely  see.  Just  at  this  time  the  birthday  of  her  friend 
Princess  Kourakin  occurs,  and  as  she  is  here  on  a  visit,  the  Coun 
tess  determined  to  give  a  fete  which  should  eclipse  all  her  former 
magnificence.  At  eight  o'clock  we  found  ourselves  at  her  country 
place,  on  the  borders  of  the  lake,  and  by  nine,  three  or  four  hundred 
persons  had  arrived.  After  taking  tea,  we  went  to  her  theatre,  which 
was  neatly  fitted  up,  and  where  "Le  nouveau  M.  de  Pourceaug- 
nac,"  which  made  much  noise  in  Paris  last  winter,  was  performed  by 
herself  and  half  a  dozen  of  her  friends.  When  this  was  over,  a  prac 
tical  charade  in  three  acts,  in  honor  of  the  princess,  was  performed 
with  great  success,  and  the  whole  ended  with  a  Cossack  dance, 
which  seemed  to  me  better  than  a  French  ballet.  On  leaving  the 
theatre  we  were  taken  to  the  conservatory,  which  was  fancifully  illu 
minated,  and  where  we  found  a  supper  was  prepared ;  but  the  scene 
was  so  beautiful,  and  the  arrangements  made  with  so  much  taste,  that 
a  great  many  of  the  party  preferred  to  walk  up  and  down,  to  see  this 
fairy  feast  prepared  amidst  odorous  shrubs  and  illuminated  orange 
groves,  to  sharing  its  luxuries.  The  entertainment  ended  with  a  ball, 
which  finished  I  know  not  when,  for  I  left  it,  wearied  out.  at  two 
o'clock  in  the  morning. 

On  the  16th  of  September  Mr.  Ticknor  joined  Dr.  Edward  Rey 
nolds,  Mr.  Edward  Brooks  of  Boston,  and  Dr.  Wagner  of  South 
Carolina,  in  an  excursion  to  Mont  Blanc,  which  occupied  three 
days,  and  excited  and  delighted  him  intensely.  His  description 
of  these  scenes,  so  new  to  him,  is  full,  animated,  and  glowing. 

In  the  evening  of  my  return  (19th),  I  passed  a  couple  of  hours  at  a 


M.  2(5.]  GENEVA.  155 

}>arty  at  Mad.  Necker's,*  a  cousin  of  Mad.  de  Stael,  who  is  considered 
in  Geneva  but  little  her  inferior  in  original  power  of  mind,  and 
of  whom  Mad.  de  Stael  once  said,  "  Ma  cousine  Necker  a  tous  les 
talens  qu'on  me  suppose,  et  toutes  les  vertus  que  je  n'ai  pas."  She  is 
about  fifty,  and  resembles  Mad.  de  Stael  a  little,  and  is  interesting  in 
conversation  from  a  certain  dignity  and  force  in  her  remarks. 

To  ELISHA  TICKNOR. 

GENEVA,  September  19,  1817. 

I .  left  Paris,  as  I  told  you  I  should,  September  2d,  with  the 
Duke  de  Broglie  and  the  Baron  de  Stael,  who  were  to  pass  a  week 
with  the  Marquis  de  Lafayette.  My  time  was  more  limited,  and 
when,  after  a  visit  of  three  days,  I  found  I  must  leave  his  venerable 
castle,  I  felt  that  it  had  been  much  too  short,  for  since  I  have  been  in 
Europe  I  have  seen  nothing  like  the  genuine  hospitality  and  patri 
archal  simplicity  of  his  establishment. 

From  there  I  came  directly  to  Switzerland,  and  when  I  first  saw 
the  Lake  of  Geneva  at  Lausanne  recognized  all  the  traits  that  poetry 
and  romance  have  not  been  able  to  exaggerate.  Such  a  view,  such  a 
variety  and  prodigality  in  the  beauties  of  nature  as  I  saw  there,  I 
never  saw  before.  The  day  that  I  passed  there  —  gazing  with  un 
wearied  delight  on  the  rocks  of  Meillerie,  the  mountains  of  Savoy, 
the  Pays  de  Vaud,  and,  above  all,  the  lake  that  rolls  in  the  midst  of 
them  —  is  one  I  shall  never  forget. 

By  the  kindness  of  friends  in  Paris,  and  especially  the  family  of 
Mad.  de  Stael,  I  brought  many  letters  here,  so  that  from  the  evening 
I  arrived  I  have  hardly  been  a  moment  alone.  The  society  is  such 
as  I  most  like  ;  much  more  to  my  taste  than  the  gayer  and  more 
witty  circles  in  Paris,  of  which  I  had  a  complete  surfeit. 

Almost  ever)7  person  I  know  here  is  an  important  man  in  the 
government  of  their  little  republic,  and  yet,  such  is  the  genius  of 
the  government  and  the  tendency  of  society,  that,  except  Sir  Francis 
d'lvernois,  all  are  men  of  letters.  For  instance,  Prof.  Pictet,  the  worthy 
successor  of  Saussure,  Prof.  De  Candolle,  and  Prof.  Prevost,  the  three 
great  pillars  of  the  University,  are  at  the  same  time  important  mem 
bers  of  the  Council  of  State.  M.  Favre,  the  richest  man  in  the  city, 

*  This  lady,  known  as  Mad.  Necker  de  Saussure,  published  in  1828  a  work 
in  three  volumes,  called  "  L'Education  Progressive,  ou  Etude  du  Cours  de  la 
Vie "  ;  which  for  wisdom,  delicacy  of  discernment,  and  acute  observation  is 
superior  to  any  study  of  the  subject  of  the  time. 


156  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1817. 

shows  his  wealth  only  in  his  hospitality,  his  fine  library,  and  the  good 
use  he  makes  of  his  leisure  ;  and  what  perhaps  is  an  instance  abso 
lutely  unique  in  the  world,  M.  de  la  Rive,  the  chief  magistrate  of 
the  state,  and  a  man  of  fortune,  is  a  very  distinguished  chemist,  and 
actually  gives  lectures  on  the  science  as  sedulously  and  thoroughly 
as  if  he  were  earning  his  bread  by  it.  This  is  really  not  an  unfair 
specimen  of  the  state  of  letters  in  Geneva,  where  they  certainly  form 
the  first  caste  in  society,  and  where  no  man  can  hope  to  distinguish 
himself  in  private  intercourse,  or  even  in  the  state,  without  being  to  a 
certain  degree  a  literary  or  scientific  man.  A  man  who  is  either  of  these 
needs  nothing  else  to  procure  him  estimation  and  deference.  I  do 
not  believe  there  is  another  city  of  twenty-five  thousand  inhabitants 
in  Europe  or  America  of  which  this  could  be  said. 

But  I  forget  my  story.  Five  days  ago  I  went  to  see  Mont  Blanc 
and  the  great  glacier  of  Chamouni.  I  dare  not  attempt  to  tell  you 
what  I  saw  and  felt  in  these  strange  solitudes,  where  the  genius 
and  power  of  ages  and  generations  might  be  wasted  in  vain  to  oblit 
erate  or  change  the  awful  features  of  nature,  or  divert  or  disturb 
her  more  awful  operations.  The  Falls  of  Niagara,  where  one  sea  pre 
cipitates  itself  into  another,  may  surpass  it  ;  but  I  have  never  seen 
Niagara,  and  the  Mer  de  Glace  remains  solitary  in  my  recollections 
of  the  stupendous  works  and  movements  of  nature. 

Farewell,  my  dear  father  and  mother,  —  farewell  from  the  beau 
tiful  shores  of  the  Lake  of  Geneva  ;  from  the  birthplace  of  Rous 
seau,  and  the  tomb  of  Mad.  de  Stae'l  ;  and  what  is  more,  from 
the  country  made  classical  by  the  traces  their  genius  has  everywhere 
left  in  it. 

Day  after  to-morrow,  Brooks  and  I  set  forth  for  Venice  and  Cogs 
well. 

DICTATEP,  1854. 

One  of  the  persons  who  was  kindest  to  me  in  Geneva  was  M.  de 
Bonstetten,  of  an  old  Bernese  family  much  valued  in  Switzerland, 
whose  correspondence  with  Gray  the  poet  has  been  published,  and 
who  seemed  to  bring  me  into  relations  with  the  times  of  Gray  and 
those  of  Madame  de  Stae'l,  to  whose  family  I  owed  my  introduc 
tion  to  him. 

He  was  seventy -two  years  old  at  this  time,  but  very  fond  of  society, 
and  mingled  much  with  it.  His  appearance  was  very  venerable,  but, 
for  his  age,  his  vivacity  was  remarkable.  Among  his  kindnesses  to 
me,  he  drove  me  one  afternoon  to  see  M.  Huber  at  his  country- 
place,  where  he  lived  through  the  year,  and  which  was  prettily  laid 


&.  26.]  HUBER.  157 

out.  He  was  nearly  seventy  years  old,  —  the  author  of  an  extraor 
dinary  Treatise  on  the  Economy  of  Bees,  which  was  much  praised 
in  a  long  article  in  the  Edinburgh  Review  some  years  before  I  saw 
him.  To  my  fresh  surprise,  I  saw  for  myself,  what  I  had  already 
known,  that  the  man  who  had  written  this  remarkable  work,  pre 
supposing  long-continued  observations,  was  entirely  blind,  and  had 
been  so  when  they  were  made.  In  fact,  all  the  curious  remarks  and 
inferences  involved  in  his  observations  were  founded  on  careful 
researches  which  he  directed  others,  and  particularly  a  favorite  ser 
vant,  to  make ;  so  that  I  looked  upon  his  book  as  a  wonderful  re 
sult  of  acuteness  and  perseverance.  He  was  very  mild  in  his  man 
ners  and  conversation,  sometimes  even  gay.  His  family  consisted  of 
his  wife,  —  who  was  said  to  have  married  him  for  love,  under  some 
difficulties,  —  a  sister,  his  son,  and  his  son's  wife,  with  two  sweet 
grandchildren. 

M.  de  Bonstetten's  visit,  from  his  position  in  society,  seemed  a 
matter  of  consequence  and  pleasure.  After  some  time  of  very  pleas 
ant  conversation,  a  little  granddaughter,  who  seemed  to  have  very 
familiar  ways  with  him,  came  running  in  and  climbed  upon  him, 
throwing  her  arms  round  his  neck,  and  saying,  "  Venez  gouter,  papa," 
led  him  out  to  the  garden,  where  a  simple  collation  had  been  pre 
pared  for  us.  Everything  there  was  adapted  to  his  infirmity : 
threads  were  stretched  at  a  convenient  height,  along  the  pretty  walks, 
to  guide  his  steps  when  he  was  unaccompanied.  He  took  his  part 
in  the  collation  without  awkwardness,  as  if  he  saw  every  one  and 
everything  ;  talking  agreeably  all  the  time.  When  it  was  over, 
the  little  girl  led  him  back  to  the  house,  as  if  accustomed  to  the 
service. 

In  talking,  he  spoke  very  low,  so  that  it  was  not  easy  for  any  one 
but  the  person  he  addressed  to  hear  him.  It  seemed  to  me  curious 
that  his  conversation  was  often  on  subjects  connected  with  the  arts, 
and  presupposed  the  use  of  sight ;  and  yet  such  was  his  exact  recol 
lection  or  skill  on  these  subjects,  that,  as  M.  de  Bonstetten  told 
me  to  observe,  there  was  nothing  in  what  M.  Huber  said  which 
would  remind  us  of  his  blindness.  When  we  came  away  he  gave 
me  some  engravings  of  horses  which  he  had  made  in  his  youth, 
and  which  were  singular  because  the  animals  were  represented  in 
unwonted  positions.  We  stayed  until  after  dark,  and  then  M.  de 
Boustetten  took  me  to  his  own  house,  where  I  sat  with  him  till  a 
late  hour,  talking  of  his  early  life  in  Berne  and  his  acquaintance 
with  Gray. 


158  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR. 


JOURNAL. 

September  22. —  I  left  the  city  of  Calvin,  Bonnet,  Rousseau,  and 
Mad.  de  Stael  this  morning  at  eight  o'clock,  with  my  friend  Brooks, 
who  makes  with  me  the  tour  of  Italy  in  a  post-chaise.  Our  route  was 
the  famous  Route  of  the  Simplon,  which  conducted  us  once  more  to 
the  beautiful  banks  of  the  lake.  When  I  came  to  Geneva,  it  was 
on  the  Swiss  side,  with  the  solemn  mountains  of  Savoy  for  my  pros 
pect  ;  in  leaving  it  my  eye  was  delighted  with  the  grace,  and  beauty, 
and  luxuriance  of  the  Pays  de  Vaud At  St.  Gingoulph  we  en 
tered  the  Valais,  and  stopped  to  sleep  at  the  post-house,  directly  on 
the  bank  of  the  lake.  It  was  the  last  time  I  should  have  the  oppor 
tunity,  and  I  could  not  resist  the  temptation  to  give  half  a  day  to  sail 
ing  on  these  beautiful  waters,  which  it  seems  as  if  I  never  could  grow 
weary  of  admiring. 

Before  sunrise,  therefore,  we  were  in  a  boat,  and  enjoyed  the  beau 
tiful  scene  of  seeing  its  first  gleams  gild  the  mountains  and  disperse 
the  mists  about  us.  We  sailed  up  the  Valais  side,  covered  with  sol 
emn  groves  of  chestnuts,  and  came  to  the  entrance  of  the  Rhone, 
whose  furious  and  turbid  waters  induced  the  ancients  to  think  it 
rushed  out  from  the  secret  recesses  of  the  earth  and  the  realms  of 
eternal  night. 

After  tracing  the  scenes  described  by  Rousseau,  and  going  over  the 
Castle  of  Chillon,  we  crossed  the  lake  to  St.  Gingoulph,  and  took 
horses  in  sad  earnest  to  leave  it 

September  24.  —  As  it  is  our  intention  to  go  up  the  St.  Bernard, 
and  as  the  weather  is  not  good,  we  have  spent  the  whole  day  at  Mar- 
tigny.  This  has  given  me  a  little  opportunity  of  seeing  something  of 
the  Valais. 

September  26.  —  We  have  had  two  superb  days  to  go  to  the  top  of 
St.  Bernard.  Yesterday  morning  we  set  out  at  seven  o'clock  on 
mules,  with  a  guide,  but  our  much  surer  guide  was  the  Dranse,  a 
little  stream  rising  from  the  summit  of  the  mountain  near  the  con 
vent  and  falling  into  the  Rhone  near  Martigny.  The  road  was  very 
interesting.  On  one  side  it  is  overhung  by  rude  and  menacing  rocks  ; 
on  the  other  it  sinks  into  precipices  which  the  imagination  hardly  dares 

to  measure One  league  before  reaching  the  summit  the  pines 

and  larches,  which  had  for  some  time  been  growing  shorter  and  rarer, 
forsook  us,  and  finally  on  the  top  (8,074  feet)  we  found  only  a 
few  starved  and  sickly  mosses,  bare  and  bleak  rocks,  and  eternal 
snow.  The  effect  on  human  life  was  no  less  obvious The  shep- 


JE.  26.]  ST.    BERNARD.  159 

herds,  in  particular,  whom  we  met  occasionally  above  all  human 
habitation,  were  deplorable  beings,  who  reminded  me  distinctly  and 
repeatedly  of  the  "  homines  intonsi  et  inculti,"  with  whom  Livy  has 
peopled  these  savage  Bolitudes  ;  while  the  poor  monks  living  on  the 

barren  summits, 

"  Divisque  propinquas 
Rupes," 

as  Silius  Italicus  calls  them,  are  only  a  dozen  in  number,  and  none 
of  them  over  thirty  years  old  ;  since,  after  that  age,  the  constitution  is 
no  longer  able  to  resist  the  rigors  of  the  eternal  winter.  The  prior, 
to  whom  I  had  letters  from  Prof.  Pictet,  received  us  with  great 
civility.  As  it  was  not  sunset,  he  carried  us  out  to  see  the  grounds  of 
the  convent.  It  stands  on  the  highest  part  of  the  passage,  but  still 
in  a  sort  of  valley,  between  mountains  two  or  three  thousand  feet 
higher  than  itself,  whose  summits  are  bright  with  eternal  snows. 
Near  it  is  a  little  lake,  said  to  be  about  thirty  feet  deep,  and  on  its 
borders,  under  the  shelter  of  its  high,  rocky  banks,  the  monks  have 
placed  some  earth  that  they  have  brought  up  the  mountain  ....  and 
in  the  months  of  September  and  August  they  are  able,  with  great 

care  and  difficulty,  to  raise  a  little  lettuce  and  spinach On  the 

very  summit  of  the  road  winds  a  brook,  with  a  stone  laid  across  it, 
divided  by  a  line  in  the  centre,  and  marked  on  each  side  with  the 
arms  of  Savoy  and  the  Valais  ;  it  is  the  boundary  between  the  two 
powers,  and,  for  the  first  time,  I  found  myself  on  Italian  ground,  and 
could  not  choose  but  exclaim,  with  the  son  of  JSneas,  "  Italiam,  Itali- 
am  ! "  for  I  seemed  at  once  to  have  reached  another  of  the  great  limits 

and  objects  of  my  pilgrimage 

We  supped  with  the  monks,  ten  in  number,  —  all  young,  all  talka 
tive,  civil,  and  gay.  They  gave  us  a  very  good  table  and  excellent 
wines ;  for  it  is  absolutely  necessary  they  should  live  well  here  in 

order  to  have  the  strength  necessary  to  resist  the  climate In  the 

morning  we  were  waked  between  five  and  six  by  the  bell  that  sum 
moned  the  monks  to  their  devotions.  I  rose  and  went  to  the  chapel. 
It  was  a  very  cold  morning,  and  their  voices,  even  as  they  chanted 

mass,  seemed  to  chill  me After  mass  we  breakfasted  with  the 

prior  alone.  Our  conversation  turned  on  the  antiquities  of  the  moun 
tain,  and  the  passages  that  have  been  made  over  it  down  to  the  times 
of  Bonaparte.  He  was  a  firm  believer  in  its  being  the  place  where 
Hannibal  crossed,  and  alleged  a  tradition,  and  some  inscriptions  found 
on  the  mountain  to  Jovi  Paennino,  which  he  showed  us,  in  proof  of 
Carthaginian  origin.  All  this,  however,  barely  proves  the  existence 


160  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1817. 

of  this  opinion  in  the  time  of  Augustus,  etc.,  which  Livy  knew  also, 
but  did  not  credit.  The  kind-hearted  little  prior  did  not  seem  to 
know  much  about  the  passage  in  the  Roman  historian,  and  I  did 
riot  tell  him  of  it,  though  I  had  the  book  with  me. 

After  breakfast,  the  last  honors  of  the  establishment  were  done  to 
wards  us  by  carrying  us  through  the  building  and  opening  to  us  the 
little  collections  in  mineralogy  and  natural  history,  and  a  few  inter 
esting  inscriptions  and  antiquities  found  on  the  site  of  the  Temple  of 
Jupiter.  When  this  was  finally  over,  the  prior  accompanied  us  a 
little  way  down  the  mountain,  and  left  us  full  of  gratitude  for  his 
kindness,  and  deeply  impressed  with  the  benevolent  utility  of  this 
remarkable  institution,  and  the  still  more  remarkable  exertions  and 
sacrifices  of  the  Augustine  monks  who  conduct  it.* 

September  27.  —  Between  Brigg  and  Domo  d'Ossola,  we  have  to 
day  crossed  the  Alps  by  the  Simplon,  —  a  most  astonishing  proof  of 
the  power  of  man It  is  impossible  to  give  any  idea  of  this  mag 
nificent  work,  which,  for  twenty  miles  together,  is  as  perfect  as  a 
gentleman's  avenue;  of  the  difficulties  the  engineers  were  obliged 
to  encounter,  which,  even  after  success,  seem  insuperable  ;  or  the 
terrors  of  the  scenery,  which  reminded  me  of  some  of  the  awful  de 
scriptions  in  Dante's  Inferno We  were  eight  hours  in  ascending, 

and  four  and  a  half  in  the  descent. 

September  29.  —  On  going  a  little  about  Domo  d'Ossola  this  morn 
ing,  —  which  is  a  neat  little  town,  —  I  found  that  not  only  the  climate, 
but  the  architecture,  had  changed.  While  coming  down  the  moun 
tains,  I  observed  the  "  refuges  "  built  on  their  sides,  to  serve  as  a  shel 
ter  to  travellers,  were  more  appropriate  in  their  forms  and  orna 
ments  than  the  same  buildings  on  the  other  side  ;  but  I  attributed  it 
to  accident.  Now,  however,  I  see  that  it  is  the  influence  of  the  Ro 
man  arts  and  their  remains,  felt  even  to  the  summit  of  the  Alps,  but 
extending  apparently  no  further. 

Our  road  to-day  was  still  in  a  valley  of  the  Alps The  culti 
vation  was  fine  and  the  crops  abundant.  All  nature,  indeed,  had  a 
gayer  aspect  than  we  had  left  on  the  other  side  of  the  Alps,  and  I 
thought  that  I  recognized  beauties  which  Virgil  boasted  when  Italy 
was  mistress  of  the  world,  and  which  Filicaja  lamented  when  they 

*  Last  year  ten  of  the  monks  and  two  sen-ants  were  overwhelmed  by  an 
avalanche,  while  guiding  some  travellers  to  the  hospice,  and  all  perished.  As 
we  descended  the  mountain  we  went  a  little  out  of  our  way  to  see  a  bridge  and 
an  avalanche  which  exactly  corresponded  to  the  description  of  one  in  Strabo.  — 
Note  by  Mr.  Ticknor. 


M.  26.]  MILAN.  161 

had  become  only  a  temptation  to  violence  which  she  could  no  longer 
resist.  Among  other  things,  I  observed  that  the  millet,  —  the  po 
tato  of  the  ancients,  —  which  Strabo  says  grew  abundantly  here,  is 
no  less  abundant  now ;  and  that  the  vine  is  wedded  to  the  elm  as  in 
the  days  of  Horace,  and  passes  from  tree  to  tree  in  graceful  festoons 
as  when  Milton  crossed  the  same  plains  a  hundred  and  fifty  years 
ago.  If,  amidst  these  more  classical  fields,  I  saw  for  the  first  time  in 
Europe  the  cultivation  of  Indian  corn,  the  recollections  it  awakened 
of  homely  happiness  were  not  discordant  from  the  feelings  with  which 
they  were  associated,  and  I  can  truly  say  that  I  have  seen  few  things 
since  I  left  that  home  which  have  given  me  more  heartfelt  pleasure. 

MILAN,  October  1.  —  We  again  commenced  our  journey  early  this 
morning,  and  when  the  sun  rose  found  ourselves  for  the  first  time  in 
the  rich  plains  of  Lombardy,  where  no  mountains  bounded  the  hori 
zon We  were  still  accompanied  by  the  mirth  and  frolics  of  the 

vintage  till,  after  passing  through  a  great  number  of  villages,  we  en 
tered  Milan 

In  the  evening  I  presented  my  letters  to  the  Marquis,  or  Abbate,  de 
Breme,  a  man  of  talents  and  learning,  and  son  of  one  of  the  richest 
noblemen  in  Italy,  who,  in  the  times  of  French  domination,  was 
Minister  of  the  Interior,  and  now  lives  in  Turin,  in  the  confidence 
and  favor  of  the  King  of  Savoy. 

The  son,  to  whom  I  was  presented,  is  nearly  forty  I  should  think, 
and  converses  remarkably  well,  with  taste  and  wit.  He  was  formerly 
grand  almoner  to  the  court,  —  a  place,  I  suspect,  to  which  his  religion 
did  not  promote  him  ;  and,  though  he  seems  to  have  been  no  friend  to 
the  French  usurpation,  he  abhors  Austria,  and  has  refused  all  offers 
to  come  into  the  government.  He  carried  me  immediately  to  his  box 
in  the  great  theatre  Delia  Scala ;  for  here  everybody  goes  every  even 
ing  to  the  play,  and  what  society  there  is  ....  is  at  this  great  ex 
change  and  lounge. 

October  7.  —  The  Marquis  de  Breme,  whose  kindness  has  been  such 
that  he  has  hardly  left  me  an  unoccupied  hour  since  I  have  been 
in  the  city,  proposed  to  me  last  evening,  if  I  would  stay  to-day,  to 
sh6w  me  some  curious  things  in  the  environs,  that  strangers  are  not 
generally  permitted  to  see.  This  morning,  therefore,  we  set  off  with 
a  little  party  he  had  collected,  consisting  of  Count  Confalonieri,*  a 
young  man  of  much  culture,  who  has  travelled  Europe  quite  over ; 

*  The  name  of  this  accomplished  young  nobleman  afterwards  became  widely 
known,  and  acquired  a  melancholy  interest  from  his  long  imprisonment  in  the 
fortress  of  Spielberg. 

K 


162  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1817. 

Borgieri,  one  of  a  few  literary  hopes  of  Italy,  who,  as  well  as  Confa- 
lonieri,  has  often  been  with  us  in  our  excursions  before ;  and  a  Rus 
sian  general The  whole  drive  was  about  thirty-five  miles; 

we  reached  Milan  at  eight  o'clock,  and  we  all  dined  very  happily  with 
the  Marquis. 

PLACENTIA,  October  9.  —  While  waiting  for  our  supper  last  night, 
—  which  we  were  obliged  to  wait  for  a  long  time,  as  the  heir  apparent 
of  the  throne  of  Sardinia  lodged  at  the  same  inn,  —  I  amused  myself 
with  looking  out,  in  the  two  great  Roman  historians,  all  the  notices  I 
could  find  of  this  little  city.  They  were  not  very  interesting,  but 
somewhat  curious.  It  was  founded  by  a  Roman  colony,  about  A.  r. 
534,  and  seems  to  have  been  so  well  built  and  fortified  —  probably 
because  it  was  a  frontier  town  —  as  to  serve  for  shelter  to  the  Ro 
mans,  etc.,  etc. 

In  this  manner  Mr.  Tieknor  occupied  himself  in  each  city  as 
he  advanced,  giving  many  curious  facts.  Few  travellers  in 
these  days  care  for  such  details  and  this  kind  of  knowledge,  and 
those  who  do  find  enough  of  them  in  their  guide-books.  These 
proofs  of  faithful  search  for  knowledge  are,  therefore,  not  given. 

October  15.  —  Early  this  morning,  and  still  with  the  finest  weather, 

we  continued  our  journey At  length  we  arrived  at  Fusina, 

and  saw  the  Queen  of  the  Adriatic,  with  her  attendant  isles,  rising 
like  an  exhalation  from  the  unruffled  bosom  of  the  deep.  It  was  a 
beautiful  spectacle,  perfectly  singular  in  its  kind,  and  indescribable, 
and  was  so  much  the  more  touching  to  my  feelings,  as  I  now  first 
saw  the  ocean  after  an  exile  from  it  of  above  two  years 

The  approach  to  Venice  is  striking  and  beautiful.  The  city  is 
built,  as  it  were,  on  the  surface  of  the  waves,  and  seems,  at  the  first 
glance,  just  sinking  into  the  deep  waters.  But  on  entering  it,  feelings 
very  different  take  possession  of  you.  You  have  left  behind  you  the 
traces  of  vegetation  ;  the  animal  creation  seems  to  have  forsaken  you  ; 
you  are  in  the  midst  of  a  great  city,  without  its  accustomed  bustle 
and  animation.  ....  Everything  is  strange,  and  everything  seems 
uncertain ;  the  very  passage-ways  are  dark  and  narrow,  and  the  massy 
architecture  of  the  houses,  ending  in  the  water,  seems  to  have  no 
foundation.  .... 

October  16.  —  Over  its  [St.  Mark's]  pronoon  stand  the  four  famous 
bronze  horses,  which  must  always  be  numbered  among  the  finest  re 
mains  of  antiquity.  Their  early  history  is  uncertain,  and  has  lately 


VENICE.  163 


been  disputed  with  much  warmth,  and  with  a  waste  of  obscure  learn 
ing,  by  Count  Cicognara,  President  of  the  Academy  of  Venice,  Schle- 
gel,  Mustoxidis,  a  native  of  Corcyra  and  a  member  of  the  French  In 
stitute,  and  Dandolo,  a  young  Venetian  patrician  of  talent  and  acute- 
ness.  Six  pamphlets  have  been  published,  and  the  war  is  not  at  an 
end.  The  question  is,  whether  these  four  horses  were  a  part  of  the 
Roman  plunder  of  Greece,  and,  after  having  been  placed  by  Nero 
on  his  arch  at  Eome,  were  transported  by  Constantine  to  ornament 
his  new  city,  or  whether  they  were  originally  of  Chios,  and,  without 
having  ever  seen  Athens  or  Rome,  were  brought  in  the  fifth  century, 
under  Theodosius  the  younger,  to  Constantinople.  It  is  a  question 
that  can  never  be  decided,  but  it  is  a  curious  and  interesting  fact, 
that  the  young  Dandolo,  who  has  shown  both  learning  and  modesty 
in  this  controversy,  is  the  direct  lineal  descendant  of  the  blind  old 
Dose  of  the  same  name,  who  in  1204  was  the  first  to  mount  the  breach 

O  * 

at  Constantinople,  and,  after  having  refused  the  Empire  of  the  East, 
and  placed  Baldwin  on  the  throne,  brought  these  very  horses  as  the 
trophy  of  his  country's  triumph  .....  It  is  not  a  little  singular  that 
the  father  of  this  young  man  is  the  very  man  who,  with  fallen  for 
tunes  and  proud  blood,  is  appointed  commander  of  the  arsenal,  and  is 
obliged  every  day  to  visit  the  ruins  of  the  glory  his  fathers  founded. 

October  17.  —  At  the  Academy  of  Arts  we  enjoyed  an  unexpected 
pleasure.  It  is  in  the  former  Convent  della  Carita,  famous  from  the 
circumstance  that  Alexander  III.,  escaping  from  the  fury  of  the  Em 
peror  Frederick,  lived  here  a  long  time  incognito.  A  part  of  it  is  by 
Palladio,  and  one  of  the  finest  of  his  works.  ....  In  this  convent, 
now  made  into  halls  for  the  purpose,  are  collecting  and  collected  from 
Paris,  ....  and  from  churches  where  they  have  slept  in  forgetfulness, 
the  great  works  of  the  Venetian  school.  Two  commanded  my  admi 
ration,  and  dimmed  the  splendor  of  the  rest,  —  one  is  Tintoretto's  mas 
terpiece,  the  miraculous  liberation,  by  St.  Mark,  of  a  slave  con 
demned  to  death  ;  ....  all  is  as  confused  as  his  wild  genius  could  have 
devised,  and  yet  it  all  centres  on  the  one  object,  and  the  whole  piece  is 
as  living  as  if  the  fact  were  passing  before  you.  The  other  picture  is 
a  magnificent  Assumption,  by  Titian,  now,  as  it  were,  first  produced  to 
the  world  .....  All  that  is  known  of  it  is  that  it  was  extremely 
admired  while  in  his  possession,  that  it  was  put  up  in  its  place  [the 
church  of  Sta.  Maria  Gloriosa]  in  a  cross  light,  ....  and  that  the 
three  centuries  of  tapers  that  piety  has  burned  under  it,  and  of  incense 
it  has  offered  up  to  it,  had  so  completely  incrusted  it  with  a  coat  of 
black  varnish,  that  in  the  best  and  strongest  light  not  a  feature  of  the 


164  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1817. 

original  work  could  be  properly  distinguished On  carefully 

cleaning  it,  the  picture  was  found  perfect,  after  three  months'  labor, 
for  the  smoke  had  preserved  it ;  and  on  the  10th  of  August  last  (1817) 
it  was  first  opened  to  the  public.  It  is  the  finest  picture,  I  suppose, 
that  I  have  yet  seen  in  Europe,  excepting  the  Madonna  of  Raphael  at 

Dresden This  immense  picture  with  its  various  subjects  and 

groups  becomes  one  work,  and  seems  united  in  all  its  parts,  as  if  the 
artist  had  breathed  it  upon  the  canvas  by  a  simple  volition  of  his 
genius.  After  standing  before  it  above  an  hour,  I  knew  not  which 
most  to  admire, —  the  poetical  sublimity  of  the  invention,  or  the  bold 
ness  of  the  execution,  and  that  magic  and  transparency  of  coloring  in 
which  Titian  has  no  rivaL 

October  19.  —  As  in  all  the  Italian  cities,  so  in  Venice,  there  is 
little  society,  and  the  persons  I  have  known  who  have  lived  there, 
such  as  Botta,  De  Breme,  the  Baron  de  Bonstetten,  etc.,  have  all  told 
me  it  was  to  be  seen  best  at  Count  Cicognara's.  To  him,  therefore, 
they  gave  me  letters,  and  I  have  found  their  predictions  justified, 
and  his  acquaintance  sufficient  for  my  purposes,  and  for  all  the  time 
I  could  give  to  society.  He  is  a  nobleman  of  fortune,  President  of 
the  Academy  of  Fine  Arts,  and  author  of  several  considerable  works, 
particularly  a  History  of  Modern  Sculpture,  —  beginning  at  the  third 
century,  where  Winckelmann  leaves  it,  —  in  three  folio  volumes,  of 
which  the  last  is  now  in  the  press.  He  is  about  fifty  years  old,  has  a 
pleasant  family,  a  wife  accomplished  and  still  beautiful,  and  assembles 
at  his  house  the  elegant,  cultivated  society  there  is  in  the  city.  Yes 
terday  I  dined  with  him,  and  every  evening  since  I  have  been  here  1 
have  passed  in  his  coterie ;  for  I  find  that  when  you  once  go  to  a  party 
of  this  sort  in  Italy,  it  is  expected  you  should  continue  your  visits, 
if  you  like,  as  regularly  as  if  you  went  to  the  opera,  —  which  so  many 
never  miss.  This,  however,  is  no  disagreeable  circumstance  to  a 
stranger,  and  at  his  house  —  with  Dandolo  and  several  other  of  the 
patricians,  and  a  few  men  of  letters  —  I  have  passed  my  evenings  as 
pleasantly  as  I  did  at  Milan,  with  De  Breme  and  Count  Confalonieri. 

October  20.  —  This  morning,  like  Portia's  messenger,  we  passed 
i 

"  With  imagined  speed 
Unto  the  tranect,  to  the  common  ferry 
Which  trades  to  Venice  " ; 

embarked  on  the  lagoon,  and  looked  back  for  the  last  time  on 
Venice,  which  seems  from  the  opposite  shore  to  dance  like  a  fairy 
creation  on  the  undulations  of  the  ocean. 


&.  26.]  LORD  BYRON.  165 

....  At  the  little  village  of  Mira,  on  the  Brenta,  and  about  four 
teen  miles  from  Venice,  we  came  to  the  villa  now  occupied  by  Lord 
Byron,  and,  still  feeling  curious  to  see  him,  I  went  in.  It  was  eleven 
o'clock,  but  he  was  not  yet  up,  and  the  servant  showed  me  into  a 
room  where  I  found  a  lively,  intelligent  gentleman,  whom  1  recog 
nized  to  be  Hobhouse  ;  who,  after  a  youth  of  dissipation,  has  now  be 
come  a  severe  student.  His  conversation  is  animated,  acute,  and 
sometimes  earnest,  but  oftener  witty 

In  a  short  time  Lord  Byron  came  in,  looking  exactly  as  he  did  in 
London  two  years  and  a  half  ago.  In  conversation  he  was  more 
lively  and  various,  and  came  nearer  to  what  a  stranger  might  expect 
from  him,  but  still  he  did  not  attain  it ;  for  I  have  never  heard  him 
make  one  extraordinary  or  original  observation,  though  I  have  heard 
him  make  many  that  were  singular  and  extravagant. 

He  told  me  incidentally  that  M.  G.  Lewis  once  translated  Goethe's 
Faust  to  him  extemporaneously,  and  this  accounts  for  the  resem 
blance  between  that  poem  and  Manfred,  which  I  could  not  before 
account  for,  as  I  was  aware  that  he  did  not  know  German.  His  resi 
dence  in  Italy,  he  said,  had  given  him  great  pleasure  ;  and  spoke  of 
the  comparatively  small  value  of  his  travels  in  Greece,  which,  he  said, 
contained  not  the  sixth  part  of  its  attractions.  Mr.  Hobhouse  had 
already  told  me  of  a  plan  formed  by  himself  and  Lord  Byron  to  go 
to  the  United  States,  about  a  year  hence,  if  he  (Hobhouse)  should  not 
get  into  Parliament ;  of  which  I  imagine  there  may  be  some  chance  ; 
but  Lord  Byron's  views  were  evidently  very  different  from  his,  and  I 
know  not  how  their  plans  could  be  reconciled.  Hobhouse,  who  is  a 
true  politician,  talked  only  of  seeing  a  people  whose  character  and 
institutions  are  still  in  the  freshness  of  youth ;  while  Lord  Byron, 
who  has  nothing  of  this  but  the  prejudices  and  passions  of  a  partisan, 
was  evidently  thinking  only  of  seeing  our  Indians  and  our  forests; 
of  standing  in  the  spray  of  Niagara;  even  of  climbing  the  Andes, 
and  ascending  the  Oronoco.  They  are  now  in  all  respects  so  differ 
ent  that  I  hardly  think  they  will  ever  undertake  the  expedition. 

When  I  happened  to  tell  Lord  Byron  that  Goethe  had  many  per 
sonal  enemies  in  Germany,  he  expressed  a  kind  of  interest  to  know 
more  about  it  that  looked  extremely  like  Shylock's  satisfaction  that 
"  other  men  have  ill  luck  too  " ;  and  when  I  added  the  story  of  the 
translation  of  the  whole  of  a  very  unfair  Edinburgh  review  into  Ger 
man,  directly  under  Goethe's  nose  at  Jena,  Byron  discovered  at  first 
a  singular  eagerness  to  hear  it,  and  then,  suddenly  checking  himself, 
said,  as  if  half  in  earnest,  though  still  laughing,  "  And  yet  I  don't 


166  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1817. 

know  what  sympathy  I  can  have  with  Goethe,  unless  it  be  that  of  an 
injured  author."  This  was  the  truth,  but  it  was  evidently  a  little 
more  than  sympathy  he  felt. 

In  the  whole  I  stayed  an  hour  and  a  half  with  them,  and  Lord  By 
ron  asked  me  to  spend  some  days,  —  an  invitation  I,  of  course,  felt  no 
inclination  to  accept,  in  his  present  circumstances ;  and  when  I  came 
away  he  left  me  at  his  gate,  saying  he  should  see  me  in  America  in 
a  couple  of  years. 

BOLOGNA,  October  24.  —  Of  the  society  of  Bologna  I  can  have,  of 
course,  no  right  to  speak ;  but  the  two  evenings  I  have  been  here  I 
have  spent  happily,  and  among  as  cultivated  and  elegant  persons 
as  any  I  have  met  in  Italy.  My  introductions  were  to  but  two 
houses  :  to  the  Abbe  Mezzofanti,  who  is  absent,  ....  and  to  Mad. 
Martinetti.  To  her  I  owe  two  very  happy  evenings,  which  I  shall 
always  remember  with  grateful  pleasure.  Count  Cicognara  gave 
me  a  letter  to  her,  and  she  immediately  told  me  that  her  house, 
which  is  one  of  the  finest  palaces  in  Bologna,  would  be  open  to  me 
every  evening.  She  is  still  young,  not  above  thirty,  I  should  think, 
very  beautiful,  with  uncommonly  sweet  and  engaging  manners  and 
talents,  which  make  her  at  once  the  centre  of  literary  and  elegant 
society  in  Bologna,  and  the  friend  and  correspondent  of  Monti,  Ca- 
nova,  Brougham,  and  many  others  of  the  first  men  of  the  times  we 
live  in.  Last  evening  there  were  few  persons  at  her  coterie.  Only  two 
or  three  men  of  letters,  a  young  Greek  from  Corcyra,  a  Count  Mar- 
chetti  and  his  pretty  wife,  Lord  John  Russell,  and  a  few  others.  The 
conversation  was  chiefly  literary,  and  so  adroitly  managed  by  Mad. 
Martinetti  as  to  make  it  general,  but  as  two  of  the  persons  present 
were  strangers  it  began  to  fail  at  last,  and  she  resorted  to  the 
very  games  we  play  in  America  to  keep  it  up,  and  with  her  wit  and 
talent  kept  us  amused  till  after  midnight. 

This  evening  it  was  a  more  splendid  meeting,  though  still  quite  in 
formal.  She  gave  a  concert,  at  which  were  present  all  the  guests  of 
the  last  evening,  many  of  the  Bolognese  nobility,  Prince  Herco- 
lani  and  his  family,  the  Cardinal  Legate,  who  is  Governor  of  the 
Province,  etc,  etc.  M.  Martinetti,  who  was  in  the  country  yesterday, 
was  likewise  there,  and  I  found  him  a  well-informed,  pleasant  man ; 
but  still  he  was  not  the  charm  that  made  his  house  the  pleasantest  in 
the  city.  The  Cardinal  is  about  sixty,  as  much  a  man  of  the  world 
as  I  have  seen.  He  thought  it  necessary  to  talk  to  me  of  America, 
and  showed  rather  a  surprising  ignorance  on  the  subject ;  though  when 
I  put  him  upon  singers  and  operas,  he  was  as  much  at  home  as  a  horse 


JR.  26.]  LOEETTO.  167 

in  his  mill.  All  these  personages  went  away  before  midnight,  and 
then  those  of  us  who  came  to  see  Mad.  Martinetti  for  her  own  sake, 
and  not  for  the  sake  of  her  music,  enjoyed  a  conversation  which  last 
ed  till  one  o'clock,  and  made  me  regret  more  than  ever  that  it  is  the 
last  which  I  shall  have  with  her  and  her  polished  and  cultivated 
friends. 

ANCONA,  October  28.  —  We  had  caught  several  glimpses  of  the 
glories  of  the  Adriatic  yesterday ;  and  to-day,  after  passing  through 
Pesaro,  descended  absolutely  upon  its  beach,  which  we  hardly  left  a 
moment  for  above  thirty  miles  until  we  arrived  at  Ancona.  The 
heavens  were  not  dimmed  by  a  single  cloud ;  the  long  surge  of  the 
ocean  came  rolling  up,  and  broke  in  foam  at  our  feet,  as  it  does  on  the 
beach  at  Nahant ;  the  Apennines  rose  majestically  on  our  right,  and 
the  little  interval  between  was  covered  with  the  gayest  and  most  lux 
uriant  vegetation.  It  was  a  union  of  the  grandeur  of  mountain 
scenery  and  the  simple  sublimity  of  the  ocean  with  the  calm  and 
gentle  beauty  of  an  agricultural  landscape  such  as  I  had  never  seen 
before,  and  it  had  a  charm  and  magic  in  it  all  its  own  which  I  can 

never  forget I  have  not  time  to  speak  of  the  churches,  the 

Exchange,  the  superb  view  of  the  town They  are  all  worth 

seeing  ;  but  the  population  of  the  city  —  its  beautiful  women,  its  busy, 
spirited  citizens,  the  Jews,  the  grave  Turks,  and  Persians,  and  lively 
Greeks  that  throng  its  narrow,  inconvenient  streets  —  are  more  inter 
esting,  and  amused  me  until  it  was  so  dark  I  was  obliged  to  go  to 
my  lodging. 

LORETTO,  October  29.  —  We  went,  of  course,  to  see  the  Spezieria,  or 
apothecary's  shop  of  the  Holy  House,  which  was  originally  founded 
to  afford  medicines  unpaid  to  the  poor  pilgrims  who  resorted  to  the 
shrine,  and  still  offers  them  to  the  few  who  claim  its  benevolence. 
Among  the  founders  of  this  institution  were  some  of  the  Dukes  of 
Urbino  ;  and  three  hundred  pots,  vases,  etc.,  to  contain  the  medicines, 
all  beautifully  painted,  and  passing  in  the  legends  of  Loretto  for  the 
works  of  Raphael,  were  among  their  presents,  and  are  the  objects  that 
chiefly  bring  visitors  to  the  apothecary's  shop.  The  truth  of  the 
case  is  as  follows.  Even  in  the  time  of  the  Romans,  an  ordinary 
kind  of  ware  resembling  porcelain  was  made  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Urbino,  and  about  A.  D.  1300  it  is  known  that  it  was  still  made 
there,  of  a  coarse  quality  indeed,  but  rare  and  curious,  as  genuine 
porcelain  was  not  yet  known  in  Europe.  In  1450  to  1500,  it  grew 
finer,  and  the  specimens  that  remain  of  that  period  are  called  mezza 
majolica.  After  1500  it  improved  still  farther,  and  is  called  fina. 


1 68  LIFE  OF  .  GEORGE .  TICKNOR.  [1817. 

and  from  1530  to  1560  it  was  at  its  greatest  perfection,  but  after  that 
it  fell  from,  I  presume,  the  competition  with  Chinese  porcelain. 

During  its  best  days  good  artists  were  employed  to  paint  it,  whose 
ciphers  are  still  recognized ;  but  the  fable  that  Raphael  ever  wrought 
on  it  arose  from  two  singular  circumstances  :  first,  that  Guido  Baldo 
II.  (Sforza)  in  1538  bought  a  large  number  of  Raphael's  sketches, 
some  of  which  he  had  used,  though  with  alterations,  on  the  Stanze, 
Loggia,  etc. ;  and  these  sketches  being  copied  upon  the  majolica  by 
other  artists,  and  yet  not  coinciding  with  Raphael's  works  entirely, 
were  naturally  supposed  to  be  his  by  superficial  inquirers ;  and  secondly, 
that  among  the  painters  on  this  ware,  there  was  a  certain  Raphael 
Colle,  whose  name  was  easily  confounded  with  that  of  the  most 
famous  of  painters. 

The  collection  at  Loretto  is  the  best  extant  of  all  this  kind  of  ware, 
and  is  beautiful  and  curious.  The  subjects  are  taken  from  Ovid's 
Metamorphoses,  the  Roman  History,  the  Old  and  New  Testaments ; 
the  colors  are  fresh  and  fair,  and  the  execution  so  fine  that  Christina 
of  Sweden  offered  to  replace  them  with  silver  jars  of  equal  weight,  — 
and  they  are  thick  and  heavy,  —  but  was  refused. 

After  a  long  and  careful  sketch  of  the  history  of  the  Cam- 
pagna  from  the  earliest  times,  and  of  the  speculations  as  to  the 
causes  of  its  unhealthiness,  Mr.  Ticknor  says  :  — 

The  present  situation  is  that  of  a  boundless  waste,  over  which  the 
eye  wanders  without  finding  any  other  horizon  than  that  formed  by  the 
gentle  undulations  which  everywhere  break  it,  without  relieving  its 
solemn  monotony.  Nothing  can  be  more  heart-rending  than  the  con 
trast  which  the  immediate  and  the  present  here  form  with  the  rec 
ollections  of  the  past,  gilded  as  they  are  by  the  feelings  and  the  fancy. 
Here  lived  the  brave  and  hardy  tribes  of  the  Albans,  the  Fidenates, 
and  the  Coriolani;  here  were  the  thirty-four  famous  cities,  of  which 
every  trace  was  lost  even  in  the  time  of  Pliny;  here  was  the  crowd 
of  population  that  found  no  place  in  Rome  in  the  time  of  the  Repub 
lic  ;  here  was  the  splendor  of  the  Empire,  when  Honorius,  from  the 
magnificence  of  the  buildings  and  monuments,  seemed  to  be  at  the  en 
trance  of  Rome  when  he  was  still  fifty  miles  from  its  gates ;  and,  finally, 
here  resided  the  strength  and  rose  the  castles  of  the  proud  barbarism  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  when  the  contest  remained  so  long  doubtful  between 
the  ecclesiastical  usurpation  within  the  city  and  the  rude  chieftains 
without.  Hcec  tune  nomina  erant,  nunc  sunt  sine  nomine  campi. 
•  I  cannot  express  the  secret  sinking  of  the  heart,  I  would  not  ac- 


M.  26.]  ROME.  169 

knowledge  and  could  not  control,  which  I  felt  in  passing  so  many 
hours  over  this  dreary  waste,  —  these  lugentes  campi,  so  different  from 
all  the  deserts  nature  has  elsewhere  left  or  created.  The  heavens  are 
of  such  an  undisturbed  and  transparent  blue,  the  sun  shines  with  so 
pure  and  white  a  light,  the  wind,  blows  with  such  soft  and  exhilarat 
ing  freshness,  and  the  vegetation  is  so  rich,  so  wantonly  luxuriant, 
that  it  seems  as  if  nature  were  wooing  man  to  cultivation.  ....  But 

when  you  recollect  that  this  serene  sky  and  brilliant  sun serve  only 

to  develop  the  noxious  qualities  of  the  soil,  and  that  this  air  which 
breathes  so  gently  is  as  fatal  as  it  is  balmy,  and  when  you  look  more 
narrowly  at  the  luxuriant  vegetation  and  find  it  composed  only  of 
gross  and  lazy  weeds,  such  as  may  be  fitly  nourished  by  vapors  like 
these,  —  when  your  eye  wanders  over  this  strange  solitude,  and  meets 
only  an  occasional  ruin,  ....  or  at  most,  a  few  miserable  shepherds, 
hardly  more  civilized  than  Tartars,  decrepit  in  youth,  pale,  haggard, 
livid,  ....  it  is  then  you  feel  all  the  horror  of  the  situation. 

November  1.  —  In  the  midst  of  this  mysterious  desolation,  only  ten 
miles  from  Eome,  we  were  stopped  for  the  night  for  want  of  horses,  and 
enjoyed  the  tantalizing  pleasure  of  seeing  the  evening  sun  reflected  in 
long  lines  of  fading  light  from  the  dome  of  St.  Peter's  and  the  tomb  of 
Hadrian,  which  we  could  just  distinguish  in  the  distant  horizon 

November  2. —  This  morning  we  were  already  on  the  road  when  the 
same  sun  appeared  again,  in  the  cloudless  splendor  of  an  Italian  sky, 

from  behind  the  hills  of  Tivoli Turning  suddenly  round  a 

projecting  height,  ....  Eome,  with  its  seven  hills,  and  all  its  towers 
and  turrets  and  pinnacles,  with  the  Castle  of  St.  Angelo  and  the 
cupola  of  St.  Peter's,  —  Rome,  in  all  the  splendor  of  the  Eternal  City, 
bursts  at  once  upon  us. 

To  CHARLES  S.  DAVEIS. 

ROME,  November  19,  1817. 

....  What  can  I  say  to  you  that  will  not  disappoint  the  expecta 
tions  that  my  date  excites  ?  for  it  is  not  enough  to  tell  you  I  have 
enjoyed  myself  more  in  Italy  than  in  all  the  rest  of  Europe,  and  that 
Rome  is  worth  all  the  other  cities  in  the  world,  unless  I  add  some 
distinct  account  of  my  pleasures,  ....  so  that  you  can  in  some  sort 
share  them  with  me.  One  of  the  great  pleasures  in  Rome  is  certainly 
that  of  going  out  to  see  its  churches,  palaces,  and  ruins  in  the  evening 
and  by  moonlight.  Last  evening  there  was  a  splendid  moon,  and  not 
a  cloud  in  the  whole  heavens.  I  could  not  resist  the  temptation, 
though  I  had  already  yielded  to  it  so  often  before,  and  I  set  out  on  a 

VOL.  i.  8 


170  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1817. 

long  course. .  .  «  .  The  first  place  where  I  stopped  was  on  the  Bridge 
of  St.  Angelo.  The  beautiful  statues  of  the  angels  seemed  ethereal 
beings  indeed,  seen  in  this  almost  preternatural  light.  The  moon  was 

reflected  full  and  bright  from  the  Tiber The  whole  of  this  scene, 

which  tells  so  long  a  tale  to  the  feelings,  was  sleeping  in  silence, 
except  when  at  rare  intervals  a  passenger  passed  the  bridge,  or  a 
poor,  blind  beggar  chanted  his  prayers  for  the  souls  in  Purgatory. 

I  passed  on,  crossed  the  river,  and  a  moment  afterwards  St.  Peter's 
rose  like  an  exhalation.  The  effect  of  its  exterior  is  incomparably 
greater  by  night  than  by  day.  In  the  magical  and  indefinite  light 
of  the  moon,  you  see  nothing  but  the  general  outline  and  grand  pro 
portions  of  the  fa§ade,  without  any  of  the  details  that  distract  you  in 
the  day ;  the  dome  is  more  solemn,  suspended  as  it  seems  to  be  in 
the  very  depths  of  the  heavens,  and  the  colonnades,  which  are  always 
so  bewitchingly  beautiful,  are  tenfold  more  so  broken  and  checkered 
with  bold  masses  of  light  and  shade ;  while  the  solemn  silence,  unin 
terrupted  by  a  solitary  human  tread,  and,  if  I  may  venture  the  phrase, 
only  made  audible  to  the  feelings  by  the  rushing  of  the  two  fountains 
that  never  rest,  gives  an  unreal  air  to  it  all,  and  makes  the  whole 
scene  that  is  spread  around  you  show  like  a  mysterious  and  glorious 
apparition.  Crossing  the  bridge, ....  I  passed  on  to  the  other  ex 
tremity  of  the  city,  ...  *  and  found  myself  before  the  solemn  mag 
nificence  of  the  Coliseum.  The  long  streams  of  light,  which  came 
reflected  from  those  parts  of  its  awful  ruin  where  the  moon  fell  or 
pierced  the  unalleviated  darkness  that  covered  the  rest,  ....  every 
pillar  and  every  portal  a  monument  that  recalled  ages  now  gone  by 
forever,  and  every  fragment  full  of  religion  and  poetry,  —  all  this  I 
assure  you  was  enough  to  excite  the  feelings  and  fancy,  till  the  pres 
ent  and  immediate  seemed  to  disappear  in  the  long  glories  and  recol 
lections  of  the  past. 

It  was  of  course  impossible  not  to  go  to  the  Forum,  for  though 
there  is  so  little  to  be  seen  there  that  produces  a  greater  or  less  effect 
in  different  lights,  there  is  a  great  deal  to  be  felt  and  fancied,  in  the 
silence  of  the  night,  on  a  spot  so  full  of  the  past,  from  the  times  of 
Hercules  and  Evander  to  our  own.  From  the  Forum  I  crossed  the 
Capitol,  ....  and  then  coming  down  by  the  column  of  Antoninus 
and  the  palaces  of  the  Corso,  found  myself  at  home,  after  a  walk  of 
three  hours. 


.  26.]  KOME.  171 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

Residence  in  Rome.  —  Presentation  to  the  Pope.  —  Visit  to  Naples.  — 
Society  in  Naples.  —  Archbishop  of  Tarentum.  —  Sir  William  Gell. 

—  Society  in  Rome.  —  Bunsen.  —  Niebuhr.  —  French,  Russians,  and 
Portuguese  in  Rome.  —  Duchess  of  Devonshire.  —  Bonaparte  Family. 

—  Florence.  —  Countess  of  Albany. 

ME.  TICKNOE  arrived  in  Eome  on  the  2d  of  November, 
1817,  and  left  it  for  the  North  the  22d  of  March,  1818. 
Of  these  five  months,  one  was  passed  in  Naples  and  four  in  Eome, 
the  latter  devoted  to  the  study  of  Italian  and  the  ancient  and 
modern  treasures  of  that  wonderful  city.  To  do  this  systemati 
cally  and  profitably  he  engaged  Professor  Nibby,  a  well-known 
archaeologist,  to  visit  with  him  the  different  portions  of  ancient 
Eome  and  their  ruins,  and  he  gives  nearly  one  volume  of  his 
Journal  to  the  results  of  these  walks  and  studies,  availing  him 
self  of  materials  he  collected  in  Germany  the  year  before  and  the 
many  books  he  carried  with  him.  The  following  passage  shows 
the  thoroughness  of  his  plan,  which  he  fully  carried  out :  — 

On  coming  to  Rome,  the  first  questions  that  occurred  to  me,  after 
the  earliest  reveries  of  wonder  and  delight  were  over,  were,  how  the 
city  gradually  came  to  occupy  the  ground  it  does  now,  and  how  this 
ground  has  been  covered  with  the  ruins,  palaces,  and  churches  we 
now  admire. 

The  first  question  relates  essentially  to  the  history  of  its  walls  from 
the  time  of  Romulus  to  that  of  Pius  VII.;  and  the  second  to  the 
history  of  architecture  and  its  luxuries  in  ancient  Rome,  with  some 
notices  of  the  circumstances  that  have  reduced  them  to  such  ruins, 
and  of  the  modern  palaces  and  churches  that  have  risen  up  around 
them.  The  whole  is  a  sort  of  introduction,  without  which  it  does  not 
seem  possible  easily  to  form  a  clear  idea  of  the  present  situation  of 
Rome,  and  which  I  now  make  to  serve  as  a  kind  of  thread  to  which 
I  can  attach  the  miscellaneous  researches  and  inquiries  I  may  make 
hereafter. 


172  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TTCKNOR.  [1818. 

He  therefore  records  the  facts  and  conclusions  that  he  gathered, 
in  the  order  he  proposed,  in  a  very  clear  and  interesting  manner; 
but  in  the  many  succeeding  years  Rome  has  been  so  studied  and 
developed  by  the  best  ininds  and  the  finest  art,  that  we  refrain 
from  giving  even  what  was  very  curious  at  the  time  it  was  writ 
ten,  and  the  proof  of  most  faithful  and  scholarly  research. 

To  ELISHA  TICK.NOR. 

ROME,  January  1,  1818. 

Once  more,  dearest  father  and  mother,  my  New  Year's  festival  is 
passed  away  from  you.  It  makes  it  sad,  but  I  do  not  complain.  It 
is  a  great  deal  that  God  has  so  kindly  favored  and  promoted  all  the 
objects  for  which  I  came  to  Europe,  has  spared  my  life  and  increased 
my  health,  and,  by  bringing  me  nearer  to  the  period  when  I  shall 
finish  the  pursuits  that  separated  me  from  you,  [has]  made  it  more 
probable  that  we  shall  meet  again  in  the  happiness  we  once  so  gladly 
enjoyed  together 

With  Rome,  I  find  every  day  more  reason  to  be  contented ;  and  if  I 
were  condemned  to  live  in  Europe,  I  am  sure  this  is  the  place  I  should 
choose  for  my  exile  beyond  any  other  I  have  yet  seen.  Nature  here 
is  so  beautiful,  as  soon  as  you  leave  the  immediate  environs  and  go  a 
little  way  among  the  hills,  that  it  seems  as  if  the  works  of  man  were 
hardly  necessary  for  his  happiness,  —  and  yet  where  has  man  done  so 
much  ?  Antiquity  has  left  such  traces  of  splendor  and  magnificence 
that  Rome  might  be  well  content  with  ruins  alone,  —  and  yet  the 
modern  city  has  more  fine  buildings  than  all  the  rest  of  the  world 
beside.  ....  But  these  are  not  all  the  attractions  of  Rome,  for  they 
bring  here  a  deputation  from  the  elegant  and  refined  class  from  every 
nation  in  Europe,  who,  when  united,  form  a  society  such  as  no  other 
capital  can  boast 

My  chief  occupation  now  is  Italian  literature,  in  which  I  have 
nearly  finished  all  I  proposed  to  myself.  ....  The  only  difficulty 
I  find  is  in  speaking,  and  this  I  really  know  not  how  I  can  get 
over.  With  my  servant  and  such  persons  I  speak  nothing  else, 
of  course,  biit  there  the  thing  ends  ;  for,  though  I  go  every  even 
ing  into  society  somewhere,  I  never  hear  a  word  of  Italian  any 
more  than  I  should  in  Kamtchatka,  unless  it  be  at  Canova's,  and 
sometimes  at  the  Portuguese  Ambassador's.  It  is  not,  in  fact,  the 
language  of  conversation  and  intercourse  anywhere,  and  therefore 
I  can  never  acquire  the  facility  and  fluency  I  have  in  German  and 


JE.  26.]  THE  POPE.  173 

French.  My  only  consolation  is,  that  what  I  lose  in  Italian  I  gain 
in  French.  However,  I  do  not  give  up  yet.  I  have  actually  engaged 

a  man  to  come  to  me  six  hours  a  week But,  as  to  engage  a  man 

to  talk  with  me  would  be  the  surest  way  to  stop  all  conversation,  I 
have  taken  a  professor  of  architecture,  on  condition  he  should  explain 
to  me  the  principles,  theory,  and  history  of  his  art  in  Italian.  This 

will  do  something  for  me I  should  be  sorry  to  go  out  of  Italy 

without  being  able  to  speak  the  language  well I  shall  probably 

go  from  Leghorn  to  Barcelona  about  May  first,  and  from  Portugal  to 
England,  uncertain  whether  by  water  or  by  Paris,  about  the  middle 
of  October.  More  of  this  hereafter.  GEO. 

To  ELISHA  TICKNOB. 

January  15,  1818. 

....  Eome  continues  to  be  all  to  me  that  my  imagination  ever 
represented  it,  and  all  that  it  was  when  I  first  arrived  here.  This  is 
saying  a  great  deal  after  a  residence  of  above  two  months ;  but  in 
truth  I  find  the  resources  of  this  wonderful  city  continually  increasing 
upon  me  the  longer  I  remain  in  it,  and  I  am  sure  I  shall  leave  it  with 
more  regret  than  I  have  yet  left  any  spot  in  Europe.  I  went  out  of 
Paris  without  once  recollecting  that  it  was  for  the  last  time ;  but  it 
will  not  be  so  with  Eome. 

TO   EUSHA   TlCKNOR. 

ROME,  February  1,  1818. 

....  Cogswell  and  myself  have  been  presented  to  the  Pope  this 
morning.  He  is  the  only  sovereign  in  Europe  I  have  ever  felt  any 
curiosity  to  see,  and  I  desired  to  see  him  very  much,  on  account  of 
the  firmness  and  dignity  with  which  he  always  behaved  in  the  most 
difficult  and  distressing  circumstances,  when  kings  and  governments, 
of  force  incomparably  greater,  shrunk  and  yielded. 

We  were  presented  by  Abbe  Taylor,  an  Irish  Catholic,  who  is 
appointed  by  the  Pope  to  present  the  English  ;  but  as  we  were 
Americans  we  had  a  kind  of  national  privilege  to  have  a  private 
audience  at  a  time  when  it  is  not  commonly  given,  and  no  one  went 
with  us  except  Prof.  Bell  of  Edinburgh,  the  famous  anatomist.  There 
was  very  little  ceremony  or  parade  about  it,  and  in  all  respects  it 
pleased  me  extremely.  On  entering,  we  knelt  and  kissed  his  hand. 

He  is,  you  know,  very  old,  but  he  received  us  standing,  and  was 
dressed  with  characteristic  simplicity  and  humility  as  a  friar,  without 


174  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR. 

the  slightest  ornament  to  distinguish  his  rank.  Bell  spoke  no  Italian, 
and  therefore  the  conversation  was  chiefly  with  us,  and,  as  we  were 
Americans,  entirely  on  America.  The  Pope  talked  a  good  deal  about 
our  universal  toleration,  and  praised  it  as  much  as  if  it  were  a  doc 
trine  of  his  own  religion,  adding  that  he  thanked  God  continually  for 
having  at  last  driven  all  thoughts  of  persecution  from  the  world,  since 
persuasion  was  the  only  possible  means  of  promoting  piety,  though 
violence  might  promote  hypocrisy.  He  inquired  respecting  the  pro 
digious  increase  of  our  population  in  a  manner  that  showed  he  had 
more  definite  notions  about  it  than  we  commonly  find  in  Europe ;  and 
when  I  explained  a  little  its  progress  to  him,  he  added  that  the  time 
would  soon  come  when  we  should  be  able  to  dictate  to  the  Old  World. 

He  had  heard,  too,  of  the  superiority  of  our  merchant  vessels  over 
those  of  all  other  nations,  and  spoke  of  our  successes  in  the  last  war 
against  the  English  with  so  much  freedom  that  I  suspect  he  had  for 
gotten  two  British  subjects  stood  at  his  elbow.  The  Abbe,  however, 
reminded  him  of  it  by  saying,  as  a  half  joke,  that  we  had  done  very 
well,  to  be  sure,  but  it  was  because  we  had  always  had  the  English 
for  masters.  "Yes,"  said  the  Pope,  not  willing  to  lose  either  his 
argument  or  his  jest,  —  "  yes,  M.  Abbe,  that  is  very  true ;  but  I  would 
advise  you  to  take  care  that  the  scholars  do  not  learn  too  much  for 
the  masters." 

In  the  whole  conversation  he  showed  great  good-nature  and  kind 
ness,  and  a  gayety  of  temper  very  remarkable  in  one  so  old  and  infirm. 
When  it  was  over  we  left  him  with  the  same  ceremonies  with  which 
we  had  entered 


JOUKNAL. 

The  society  of  Naples,  or  at  least  the  society  into  which  I  happened 
to  be  east,  interested  me  much.  I  do  not  speak  of  that  which  consists 
of  foreigners,  but  of  the  strictly  Neapolitan,  which  I  met  "but  in  two 
houses,  the  Duke  di  San  Teodoro's  and  the  Archbishop  of  Tarentum's. 
At  the  first  I  dined,  whenever  it  was  possible  for  me  to  finish  my  ex 
cursions  as  early  as  three  o'clock,  and  kept  Lent  there  in  a  style  of 
luxury  which  would  not  have  disgraced  Naples  in  the  times  of  Han 
nibal  or  Horace,  and  yet  which  never  offended  against  the  letter  of 
the  injunctions  of  the  Church. 

The  Duke  has  been  minister  in  half  the  courts  of  Europe,  and  his 
wife,  besides  being  one  of  the  best  women  in  the  world,  is  full  of  cul 
ture.  With  Benci,  a  Florentine  of  some  literary  name,  the  Chevalier 


JE.  26.]  SOCIETY  IN   NAPLES.  175 

Tocca  (the  brother  of  the  Duchess),  and  two  or  three  other  persons 
who,  like  myself,  were  invited  to  dine  whenever  they  chose,  the  party 
was  as  pleasant  as  it  needed  to  be  ;  and  if  I  could  not  find  time  to  dine 
there,  I  commonly  went  from  four  or  five  o'clock  till  six,  and  dined 
with  Mr.  Smith  afterwards. 

My  Platonic  visits,  however,  were  at  the  venerable  Archbishop's, 
where  I  dined  on  Thursday  with  Sir  William  Gell,  Mr.  Craven,  Lord 
Guilford,  the  Marquis  of  Ubaldo,  and  three  or  four  others,  Italians. 
The  old  Archbishop  is  a  venerable  patriarch  and  an  interesting  man, 
and  is  of  one  of  the  oldest  and  richest  noble  families  of  Naples  ;  has 
been  Minister  of  State  ;  and,  having  gone  through  all  the  honors  the 
Church  could  give  him,  up  to  the  archbishopric,  and  refused  to  go 
higher,  lives,  at  the  age  of  seventy-six,  in  a  kind  of  literary  retirement, 
with  a  simplicity  and  dignity  which  show  that  he  has  preserved  the 
purity  of  his  character.  He  received  his  friends  every  evening  in  a 
style  which  I  have  not  yet  seen,  and  which  pleased  me.  About  a 
dozen  of  the  most  cultivated  Italians  met  in  his  little  salon  at  six  or 
seven  o'clock,  and  one  of  them  read  aloud  from  some  classical  book 
that  would  interest  all.  Once  it  was  a  tragedy  of  Alfieri,  once  the 
Stanze  of  Poliziano,  at  another  time  a  new  pamphlet  on  Pompeii.  If 
any  one  preferred  conversation,  or  other  amusements,  other  rooms 
were  open  to  them.  In  short,  it  was  a  literary  society.  Without 
pedantry  or  formality,  every  one  found  himself  at  ease,  and  sought  to 
return  as  often  as  he  could.  I  have  seldom  seen  a  man  at  the  Arch 
bishop's  age  who  has  preserved  so  lively  an  interest  in  everything 
about  him  ;  who  felt  so  quickly  and  simply ;  who  had  so  much  knowl 
edge  and  made  so  little  pretensions ;  who  had  so  much  to  boast  on 
the  score  of  rank,  fortune,  and  past  power,  and  yet  was  so  truly 
humble,  so  unostentatiously  kind.  I  shall  always  remember  him  with 
the  most  grateful  respect,  and  think  of  the  Attic  evenings  I  passed  in 
his  palace  as  among  the  happiest  I  have  known  in  Europe. 

Of  the  society  of  foreigners,  which  forms  itself  more  or  less  every 
winter  in  all  the  cities  of  Italy,  I  saw  as  much  as  I  desired  or  chose, 
and  among  them  were  certainly  some  interesting  men :  such  as  Sir 
William  Gell,  to  whom  I  had  letters,  and  who  is  a  man  of  learning 
and  taste,  but  a  consummate  fop  in  person  and  in  letters;  Lord 
Guilford  (Frederick  North),  a  man  of  more  learning,  and  whose  active 
benevolence  will  do  more  for  Greece  than  Gell's  pretensions  and 
ehowy  books ;  Randohr,  the  Prussian  Minister ;  the  Marquis  de  Som- 
mariva,  a  Milanese  and  a  kind  of  Maecenas  of  the  arts  now ;  and 
Mr.  Benjamin  Smith,  son  of  the  member  from  Norwich,  who  is  here 


176  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1818. 

with  his  sister  for  his  health.  I  always  had  a  plate  at  their  table, 
and  generally  met  somebody  that  interested  or  instructed  me :  such  as 
Sir  William  Gumming,  a  Scotchman  of  talent ;  the  famous  Azzelini, 
who  was  with  Bonaparte  in  Egypt,  and  gave  me  once  a  curious  ac 
count  of  the  shooting  the  prisoners  and  poisoning  the  sick  at  Jaffa ; 
Miss  Lydia  White,  the  fashionable  blue-stocking ;  and  many  others  of 
the  same  sort,  so  that  the  two  or  three  days  in  the  week  I  dined  there 
were  very  pleasantly  passed. 

On  the  28th  of  February  Mr.  Ticknor  left  Naples  and  returned 
to  Rome. 

To  ELISHA  TICKNOR. 

ROME,  March  3,  1818. 

....  My  visit  at  Naples,  on  which  I  was  absent  from  this  city  just  a 
month,  was  every  way  pleasant  and  interesting.  The  weather  in  par 
ticular  —  which  is  of  great  importance  in  a  place  like  Naples,  where 
almost  everything  you  desire  to  see  is  outside  of  the  city  —  was,  with 
the  exception  of  one  or  two  days,  only  delightful.  It  was  what  the 
Italians  call  their  first  spring,  and  the  almond-trees  were  in  blossom, 

the  orange-trees  burdened  with  fruit "  Hie  felix  ilia  Campania," 

said  Pliny,  and  the  form  of  the  expression  is  no  vain  vaunt,  for  a 
more  beautiful  country  I  have  never  yet  seen.  As  I  stood  at  sunset, 
one  evening,  on  the  height  of  Camaldoli,  and  saw  the  whole  of  the 
beautiful  Gulf  of  Naples,  with  all  its  harbors  and  islands  stretched  out 
beneath  me  like  a  chart,  while  the  solemn  bareness  of  Vesuvius 
and  the  snow-clad  tops  of  the  distant  Apennines  closed  in  the  pros 
pect  behind  and  on  my  left  like  a  panorama,  the  thought  involun 
tarily  rose  that  this  must  be  a  spot  singularly  chosen  and  favored  of 
Heaven :  so  various  is  the  scenery,  so  luxuriant  the  soil,  so  gay  and 
graceful  the  landscape.  But  these,  when  you  go  into  Naples  itself, 
seem  to  be  the  very  seals  of  Heaven's  displeasure. 

JOURNAL. 

Society  in  Rome  is  certainly  a  remarkable  thing,  different  from  so 
ciety  in  every  other  part  of  the  world.  Among  the  Romans  them 
selves  the  elegant  and  cultivated  class  is  really  so  small,  the  genuine 
character,  civilization,  and  refinement  of  the  country  are  so  worn  put 
and  degraded,  that,  even  in  their  own  capital,  they  are  not  able,  and  do 
not  pretend  to  give  a  tone  to  society  and  intercourse.  The  strangers, 
however,  that  throng  here  every  winter  from  all  the  ends  of  Christen 
dom,  more  than  supply  this  want  of  domestic  cultivation  and  talent ; 


JE.  26.]  BUNSEN.  177 

for  those  who  come  here  are  rarely  the  empty  and  idle  travellers  who 
lounge  through  Europe  to  lose  time  that  hangs  heavy  on  their  hands 
at  home,  since  Rome  is  not  a  common  city,  but  one  whose  attractions 
require  at  least  a  moderate  share  of  knowledge  to  understand  and 

enjoy 

These  cultivated  strangers  settle  down  into  coteries  of  their  own, 
generally  determined  by  their  nationality.  Thus  the  Germans,  the 
English,  and  French  have  their  separate  societies,  —  preserving  in 
the  forms  of  their  intercourse  and  in  their  general  tone  the  national 
character  that  marks  them  at  home  ;  except  when,  perhaps,  two  or 
three  times  in  the  week  all  the  strangers  in  Rome,  with  a  few  of  the 
best  of  the  Italians,  a  quantity  of  cardinals,  bishops,  and  ecclesiastics 
of  all  names  and  ranks,  are  brought  together  at  a  kind  of  grand  rout, 

called  a  conversazione,  or  accademia Nothing   can  be  more 

amusing  than  one  of  these  farrago  societies  which  I  have  seen  at  the 
Duchess  of  Devonshire's  and  Count  Funchal's,  the  Portuguese  Am 
bassador,  —  the  east  and  west,  the  north  and  the  south,  ....  all 
brought  together  to  be  pushed  about  a  couple  of  hours  or  more  in  an 
endless  suite  of  enormous  rooms,  and  then  wait  for  their  carriages 

*  O 

in  a  comfortless  antechamber,  —  all  national  distinctions  half  broken 
down  by  the  universal  use  of  French,  even  among  persons  of  the  same 
country,  and  more  than  half  preserved  by  the  bad  accent  with  which 
it  is  spoken,  —  the  confusion  of  the  Tower  of  Babel  produced  without 

a  miracle  or  an  object Rome  is  still  as  much  the  capital  as  it 

was  in  the  times  of  Hadrian  or  Leo  X 

Among  the  Germans  there  is  the  family  of  Bunsen,  who  has  mar 
ried  an  English  woman,  and  is  himself  full  of  good  learning  and 
talent;  the  family  of  Mad.  de  Humbolclt  (in  conversation  called 
the  Mad.  de  Stae'l  of  Germany),  who  collects  about  her  every  even 
ing  the  best  of  her  nation,  especially  the  artists  Thorwaldsen,  Lund, 
Schadow,  etc.,  and  to  whose  society  I  owe  some  of  the  pleasantest 
hours  I  have  passed  in  Rome ;  Niebuhr,  the  Prussian  Minister,  who, 
after  all  I  have  heard  in  Germany  of  his  immense  learning  and  mem 
ory,  has  filled  me  with  admiration  and  astonishment  every  time  I 
have  seen  him ; .  .  .  .  Baron  Eckhardtstein,  who  has  travelled  all  over 
Europe  with  profit,  and  was  distinguished  as  an  officer  in  the  last 
war ;  Baron  Ziegenhorn,  now  in  the  midst  of  a  course  of  travels  ap 
palling  for  their  length  and  objects  to  any  but  a  German.  But  the 
person  who  has  excited  the  most  attention  among  the  Germans,  and 
who  really  deserves  it,  is  the  Crown  Prince  of  Bavaria,  a  young  man 
of  about  thirty,  who  has  been  living  here  in  a  very  simple,  unosten- 
8*  L 


178  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1818. 

tatious  manner,  and  enjoying  Rome  like  a  cultivated  gentleman  with 

much  taste  and  considerable  talent He  talks  English  pretty 

well,  and  knows  a  good  deal  about  general  history,  and  something 
about  America,  which  he  liked  well  to  let  me  see 

Mr.  Ticknor  in  later  years  gave  the  following  account  of  an 
interesting  scene  he  witnessed  in  Rome  at  this  time.  It  was 
written  down  immediately  by  one  of  those  who  heard  it. 

The  first  time  I  ever  saw  Bunsen  he  was  introduced  to  me  at  Gb't- 
tingen,  in  1816,  by  one  of  the  professors,  and  I  was  told  that  he  had 
been  two  years  private  tutor  to  one  of  my  countrymen,  Mr.  William 
B.  Astor.  He  was  then  on  his  way  to  Rome  to  be  private  secretary 
to  Niebuhr.  A  year  and  a  half  afterwards,  when  I  went  to  Rome,  I 
found  him  there,  a  married  man. 

I  witnessed  a  very  extraordinary  scene  there,  —  the  celebration  of 
the  three-hundredth  anniversary  of  Luther's  burning  the  Papal  bull, 
got  up  right  under  the  nose  of  the  Pope !  It  was  very  curious.  It 
was  in  October,  1818.  I  had  just  arrived  in  Rome,  coming  from 
Germany,  and  was  very  much  among  the  Germans,  —  with  Niebuhr 
and  Bunsen,  Brandes  and  Mad.  de  Humboldt.  Niebuhr  thought  of 
getting  up  the  celebration,  and  at  first  intended  to  have  it  in  his  own 
palazzo;  but  he  changed  the  plan,  and  arranged  that  it  should  be  held 
in  a  large  room  at  Brandes's  lodgings,  he  being  connected  with  the 
legation.  There  was  nobody  present  but  twenty  or  thirty  Germans, 
except  Thorwaldsen,  who,  being  a  Dane,  was  all  one  as  a  German, 
and  myself,  who  was  invited  as  a  kind  of  German. 

Bunsen  read  something  between  a  speech  and  a  sermon;  and 
there  were  prayers,  that  he  had  translated  from  the  English  Prayer- 
Book.  Brandes  read  them,  and  there  was  a  great  sensation  produced 
in  the  room.  "What  Bunsen  said  was  fine  and  touching.  At  the  end, 
Niebuhr  —  who  always  reminded  me  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Channing,  a 
small  man,  with  a  great  deal  of  soul  in  his  face  —  went  up  to  Bunsen, 
meaning  to  say  some  words  of  thanks.  He  held  out  both  hands  to 
him,  and  then  he  was  completely  overcome  ;  he  fell  on  his  neck  and 
wept  loud,  and  I  assure  you  there  were  not  many  dry  eyes  in  the 
room. 

JOURNAL. 

Of  Frenchmen  there  are  very  few  here  now,  and  really  the  solemn 
grandeur  of  Roman  greatness  does  not  well  suit  them.  Winckelmann 
says,  in  one  of  his  curious  letters  to  Berendis,  "  A  Frenchman  is  not 


M.  26.]  SOCIETY  IN  ROME.  179 

to  be  improved  here.  Antiquity  and  he  contradict  one  another";  and 
since  I  have  been  here  I  have  seen  and  felt  a  thousand  proofs  of  the 

justness  of  the  remark Simond  himself,  though  I  think  him  in 

general  a  cool,  impartial  man,  stands  up  a  mere  Frenchman  as  soon  as 
you  get  him  upon  the  subject  of  antiquities,  of  which  he  seems  to  have 
about  as  just  notions  as  divines  have  of  the  world  before  the  flood. 
Mazois,  who  is  preparing  a  work  on  Pompeii,  which  will  at  least 
have  splendor  and  accuracy  to  recommend  it,  if  not  taste  or  learning, 
is,  I  think,  the  best  of  his  nation  here,  though  certainly  Simond  is  the 
most  cultivated  and  interesting. 

Of  the  Russians  there  are  a  good  many  that  circulate  in  general 
society,  and  talk  French  and  English  fluently ;  but,  really,  wherever  I 
have  seen  this  people,  I  have  found  them  so  abdicating  their  nation 
ality  and  taking  the  hue  of  the  society  they  are  among,  that  I  have 
lost  much  of  my  respect  for  them.  Two,  however,  whom  I  have 

known  here  are  men  to  be  respected  anywhere One  of  them  is 

Admiral  Tchitchagof,  who  made  so  much  noise  in  the  war  of  1812, 
and  who  is  simple  and  respectable,  though  I  should  not  have  imagined 
that  he  was  distinguished  for  his  talents.  The  other  is  Italinski,  the 
Russian  Ambassador,  whom  I  know  more,  because  I  am  in  the  habit 
of  going  frequently  to  see  him.  He  is  the  author  of  the  Explanations 
to  the  three  volumes  of  Tischbein's  Etruscan  Vases,  and  a  man  of 

Eastern  learning,  particularly  in  the  modern  languages  of  Asia 

He  is  now  infirm,  though  not  very  old ;  gentle  and  kind  in  his  man 
ners  ;  living  rather  retired  for  a  public  minister,  though  with  a  kind 
of  hospitality  that  in  his  hands  takes  the  form  of  Eastern  luxury.  At 
his  dinners,  when  I  was  there,  there  was  either  fashion  or  splendor, 
Avhich  he  did  not  seem  much  to  enjoy,  ....  or  else  a  simply  learned 
meeting  of  a  few  friends  he  knew  well,  ....  such  as  Fea,  the  head  of 
the  Roman  antiquaries,  Ackerbladt  the  Swede,  Wiegel  from  Dres 
den,  etc.,  which  was  more  pleasant  than  any  society  of  the  sort  in 
Rome. 

The  Portuguese  had,  the  greater  part  of  the  winter,  a  splendid  repre 
sentation  here Count  Funchal  ....  is  now,  at  the  age  of  sixty,  a 

dignified  representative  of  his  government.  As  he  is  ambassador,  and 
therefore  the  very  sovereign  present,  besides  being  rich,  there  is  a 
state  and  magnificence  in  his  house  such  as  I  have  not  seen  anywhere 

else Where  it  is  not  necessary  for  him  to  play  the  king,  he  is 

simple  and  unaffected  ;  and  his  literary  dinners,  if  not  so  pleasant  as 
those  of  the  Russian  minister,  because  he  has  not  the  personal  means 
to  make  them  so,  are  still  much  sought  after,  ....  and  it  is  thought 


180  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1818. 

no  small  distinction  to  be  invited  to  them The  Marquis  de 

Marialva  is,  I  suppose,  the  most  considerable  Portuguese  by  his 
talents,  and  the  most  important  by  his  influence,  that  has  remained  in 
Europe  since  the  Court  went  to  the  Brazils ;  certainly  he  is  one  of  the 
most  elegant  and  accomplished  gentlemen  I  have  met.  He  is  the  only 
man  I  have  seen  in  Europe  who  has  come  up  to  my  ideas  of  a  consum 
mate  courtier,  —  taken  in  the  good  sense  of  the  word ;  for  though  in 
all  companies  he  was  the  first  man,  from  his  position,  yet  the  elegance 
of  his  manners  and  the  kindness  of  his  disposition  prevented  embar 
rassment  and  ceremony. 

The  English  everywhere,  and  in  all  great  collections,  formed  a  sub 
stantial  part  of  society  in  Rome  during  the  whole  winter.  The  greatest 
gayety  was  among  them,  and  the  greatest  show,  except  that  made  by 

the  diplomatic  part  of  the  beau  monde I  went  to  the  Duchess  of 

Devonshire's  conversaziones,  as  to  a  great  exchange,  to  see  who  was 
in  Rome,  and  to  meet  what  is  called  the  world.  ....  The  Duchess  is 
a  good,  respectable  woman  in  her  way.  She  attempts  to  play  the 
Maecenas  a  little  too  much,  it  is  true ;  but,  after  all,  she  does  a  good 
deal  that  should  be  praised,  and  will  not,  I  hope,  be  forgotten.  Her 
excavations  in  the  Forum,  if  neither  so  judicious  nor  so  fortunate  as 

Count  Funchal's,  are  satisfactory,  and  a  fair  beginning Her 

"  Horace's  Journey  to  Brundusium  "  ....  is  a  beautiful  book,  and  her 
"  Virgil,"  with  the  best  plates  she  can  get  of  the  present  condition  of 
Latium,  will  be  a  monument  of  her  taste  and  generosity.  ....  The 
most  important  and  interesting  man  who  went  there  [to  her  recep 
tions]  was  undoubtedly  Cardinal  Consalvi,  the  Pope's  Prime  Minister, 
and  certainly  a  thorough  gentleman  and  a  man  of  elegant  conversa 
tion He  has  talent  and  efficiency  in  business,  and  deserves,  I  am 

persuaded,  the  character  of  a  liberal  and  faithful  minister Lady 

Douglass's  societies,  which  I  have  known  only  since  my  return  from 
Naples,  —  for  before  she  was  too  ill  to  receive  company,  —  are  small 
and  pleasant.  She  has  been  here  two  years  for  her  health,  and  is 
certainly  one  of  the  sweetest  of  women,  with  two  children  who  are 
mere  little  cherubs,  to  whom  she  devotes  herself  with  uncommon 
tenderness  and  affection.  Twice  in  the  week,  generally, ....  she  col 
lects  a  few  of  her  friends,  and  by  the  variety  of  her  talents  and  the 
sweetness  of  her  manner  gives  a  charm  to  her  societies  which  none 
others  in  Rome  have.  Besides  these,  I  used  to  go  to  Sir  Thomas 
Trowbridge's  ;  sometimes  to  Mrs.  Drew's,  sister  of  Lady  Mackintosh  ; 
to  John  Bell's,  the  famous  surgeon ;  etc.,  etc. 

I  have  reserved  the  Bonapartes  to  the  last,  because  I  really  do  not 


JE.  26.  J  THE  PRINCESS  BORGHESE.  181 

know  where  to  class  them ;  for  they  belong,  now  at  least,  to  no  nation, 
and  live  at  home  as  among  strangers.  Their  acquaintance,  however, 
is  more  sought  than  that  of  any  persons  in  Rome ;  and  as  for  myself, 
I  found  no  societies  so  pleasant,  though  I  found  others  more  culti 
vated  and  more  fashionable. 

To  begin,  then,  with  Mad.  Mere,  as  she  is  still  called.  She 
lives  in  the  same  palace  with  her  brother,  Cardinal  Fesch,  —  the  • 
Cardinal  in  the  upper  part,  and  Madame  in  the  principal  story,  but 
both  with  princely  state,  in  a  magnificent  suite  of  apartments.  The 
Cardinal  has  the  finest  private  gallery  of  pictures  I  have  seen,  and 
shows  them  with  great  liberality  and  kindness ;  generally  receiving  in 
person  those  who  come  to  see  it.  In  the  evening  he  goes  down  to 
"  Madame,"  and  they  form  their  coterie  together,  to  which  I  some 
times  went ;  but  it  was  rather  dull,  though  everything  wealth  could 
do  to  make  it  splendid  was  done 

Louis,  the  former  king  of  Holland,  who  now  passes  under  the  title 
of  the  Count  de  St.  Leu,  lives  more  simply  than  any  of  the  family, 
and  preserves  the  character  for  good-nature  and  honesty  which  he  did 
not  lose  even  in  Holland  when  acting  under  the  orders  of  a  cruel 
despotism.  He  has  one  son,  a  promising  boy  of  fourteen,  to  whom 
he  is  devoted,  and  occupies  himself  with  his  education.  The  rest  of 
the  time,  it  is  said,  he  passes  in  reading  Latin  and  in  writing  poetry. 
In  the  evening  he  has  his  coterie,  which  is  pleasanter  than  his  moth 
er's,  because  his  own  conversation  is  more  amusing  ;  and,  on  the  whole, 
from  the  nature  of  his  pursuits,  the  simplicity  of  his  manners,  and  the 
kindness  of  his  disposition,  I  think  he  lives  more  happily  than  any  of 
his  family. 

The  Princess  Borghese  is  the  most  consummate  coquette  I  ever  saw. 
At  the  age  of  forty-two  she  has  an  uncommonly  beautiful  form,  and 
a  face  still  striking,  if  not  beautiful.  When  to  this  is  added  the  pres 
ervation  of  youthful  gayety,  uncommon  talent,  and  a  practical  ad 
dress,  it  will  be  apparent  she  is,  if  not  a  Ninon  de  1'Enclos,  a  most 
uncommon  woman.  At  Lucien's,  where  a  grave  tone  prevails,  she  is 
as  demure  as  a  nun ;  but  in  her  own  palace,  where  she  lives  in  great 
luxury,  she  comes  out  in  her  true  character,  and  plays  herself  off 
in  a  manner  that  makes  her  as  great  a  curiosity  as  a  raree-show. 
On  her  birthnight  she  gave  a  supper  to  seventy  people,  and  the  whole 
service  was  in  gilt  silver.  But,  notwithstanding  the  Eastern  splendor 
of  everything,  united  to  European  taste  and  refinement,  I  am  per 
suaded  the  strangers  there,  like  myself,  were  more  struck  with  her 
manoeuvres,  seated  between  the  old  Cardinal  Albani  and  the  Cardinal 


182  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1818. 

Vicar,  than  by  all  the  magnificence  and  luxury  about  them.  On 
another  evening  she  showed  her  jewels  to  four  young  men  of  us  who 
happened  to  call  on  her,  and  I  am  sure  I  shall  never  forget  the  tricks 
and  manoeuvres  she  played  off.  It  is,  after  all,  but  coquetry,  and  it 
is  possible  to  have  but  one  opinion  of  her  character ;  but  it  is  not  a 
vulgar  coquetry,  and  it  is  the  talent  and  skill  about  it  which  redeem 
it  from  ridicule,  and  make  her  a  curiosity,  —  like  Napoleon  himself, 
—  not  respectable  to  be  sure,  but  perfect  in  its  kind. 

At  Lucien's,  now  Prince  of  Canino,  all  is  different,  and  I  have  been 
there  so  much,  and  so  familiarly,  that  I  know  his  family  better  than 
any  other  in  Europe.  In  all  respects  it  is  an  interesting  one,  and  in 
many  it  is  amiable  and  attracting.  He  has  been  married  twice  ;  and 
besides  the  two  children  by  his  first  wife,  and  seven  by  the  second, 
his  second  wife  herself  has  a  daughter  by  a  first  husband  ;  and  all  three 
sets  live  happily  together,  and  the  present  Princess  is  a  kind  and  good 
mother  to  them  all.  They  live  retired,  and  since  I  have  been  in  Rome 
have  not  made  a  single  visit,  except  to  their  daughter,  the  Princess 
Prossedi.  They  are  at  home  in  the  evening  to  a  few  persons,  who, 
finding  no  house  in  Rome  so  pleasant,  generally  avail  themselves  ev 
ery  evening  of  the  privilege.  The  Prince  is  about  fifty,  of  a  most  im 
movable  character,  —  always  the  same,  always  untouched  by  changes. 
If  this  has  produced  no  other  good  effect,  it  has  certainly  given  him 
the  entire  confidence  of  his  family ;  who  thus  always  know  where  to 
find  him.  In  conversation  he  is  barren,  partly  from  diffidence,  but 
more  from  secretness  and  reserve  of  character.  During  the  day  he 
employs  himself  with  mathematics,  and  particularly  astronomy  ;  and, 
except  a  little  while  after  dinner,  is  not  with  his  family  until  eight  in 
the  evening,  when  he  comes  from  his  study  and  remains  with  them 
till  midnight.  The  pleasure  I  have  often  seen  kindle  in  their  counte 
nances  as  he  entered  at  this  hour  is  a  proof  how  he  is  beloved  by 
them ;  and  the  kiss  he  always  gave  the  Princess  Prossedi,  when  she 
came  and  went,  proved,  too,  how  dear  his  children  are  to  him. 

The  Princess  is  about  forty,  with  a  good  deal  of  talent,  uncommon 

beauty,  and  considerable  culture  and  accomplishment The 

Princess  Prossedi,  Lucien's  oldest  daughter  by  his  first  wife,  is  not 
beautiful,  though  not  ugly,  —  a  simple,  kind,  and  affectionate  woman, 
looking  up  to  her  father  as  to  a  superior  being,  loving  her  husband 
with  unreserved  confidence,  and  doting  on  her  child  to  extravagance. 
She  is  pious  and  actively  benevolent,  and  in  talents,  manners,  and 
character  such  a  person  as  would  be  loved  and  respected  in  any 
country.  Christine,  the  next  oldest,  and  now  about  eighteen,  is  a  very 


.JE.  26.]  THE  COUNTESS  OF  ALBANY.  183 

different  character.  She  has  more  talent  than  her  sister,  an  unquench 
able  gaiete  de  cceur,  sings,  plays,  and  dances  well,  says  a  thousand  witty 
things,  and  laughs  without  ceasing  at  everything  and  everybody. 
Loving  admiration  to  a  fault,  she  is  something  of  a  coquette,  though 
her  better  qualities,  her  talents,  her  good-nature  and  wit,  keep  both 
under  some  restraint.  She  always  sits  in  a  corner  of  the  salon,  and 
keeps  her  little  court  to  herself,  for  she  chooses  to  have  an  exclusive 
empire  ;  but  this  is  soon  to  be  over,  for  she  is  to  be  married  directly 
to  Count  Posse,  a  Swede.*  .... 

The  daughter  of  Madame  by  her  first  husband,  Anna,  is  a  most 
beautiful  creature,  about  seventeen  ;  just  going  to  be  married  to  Prince 
Hercolani  of  Bologna,  —  a  love-match  which  promises  much  happiness. 
She  has  not  much  talent,  and  no  showy  accomplishments,  but  has  a 
sweet  disposition  and  affectionate  ways.  This  is  all  the  family  I  meet. 
Two  other  daughters  are  at  the  convent,  and  a  son  at  college. 

This  is  a  fair  account  of  the  society  at  Rome  for  this  winter.  It 
never  interferes  with  other  occupations,  for  nobody  dines  until  dark, 

and  nobody  visits  in  the  daytime In  the  evening  a  stranger 

feels  very  desolate ;  and  I  have  always  gone  somewhere,  and  generally 
passed  part  of  every  evening  at  Lucien's. 

To  EDWARD  T.  CHAINING. 

LEGHORN,  April  7, 1818. 

....  At  Florence  I  spent  ten  days  very  pleasantly,  for  Florence  is 
one  of  the  few  cities  in  the  world  —  perhaps  the  only  one  —  that  may 
be  seen  with  pleasure,  as  a  city,  after  Rome.  There  is  a  fine  society 
there  too,  —  not  so  various  as  the  Roman,  but  still  one  that  is  not  a 
little  interesting  to  a  stranger.  The  Countess  of  Albany  is  at  the  head 
of  it ;  and  you  come  so  near  to  being  an  English  Jacobite,  that  I  think 
you  will  like  to  hear  a  little  about  the  wife  of  the  last  Pretender,  and 

*  Christine  Bonaparte  married  Count  Posse,  and  afterwards  Lord  Dudley 
Stuart,  being  neither  happy  nor  respectable  in  either  connection.  Count  Posse 
travelled  in  this  country  about  1827  or  1828,  and  when  visiting  at  my  house 
showed  us  some  very  beautiful  and  curious  miniatures  and  jewels.  I  did  not 
know,  till  some  time  after,  that  he  was  so  pressed  for  money  that  no  doubt  he 
would  have  gladly  sold  them.  He  borrowed  money  of  Mr.  Cogswell,  which 
he  did  not  repay.  A  younger  daughter  of  Mad.  Bonaparte  came  from  the 
convent,  where  she  had  been  educated,  when  she  was  fourteen,  eagerly  desiring 
to  return  to  the  convent  for  life.  This  pious  young  creature  married  Mr. 
Wyse,  the  gentleman  and  scholar,  and  made  for  herself  the  most  notoriously 
bad  character.  —  Note  by  Mr.  Ticknor,  1860. 


184  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1818. 

to  know  something  of  the  wife  whom  Alfieri  loved  with  the  most  de 
voted  passion  to  the  last  moment  of  his  life.  I  need  not  tell  you  she 
is  old,  since  Dupaty's  book  is  filled  with  admiration  of  her,  nearly 
forty  years  ago ;  but  she  has  preserved  all  the  vivacity  of  youth,  and 
takes  as  strong  an  interest  in  the  world  as  she  ever  did.  Every  even 
ing  at  eight  o'clock  she  receives  her  friends  and  the  strangers  intro 
duced  to  her,  and  on  Saturday  night  holds  a  kind  of  levee,  composed 
of  all  the  first  society  in  Florence,  which  comes  there  to  pay  her  its 
court ;  but  at  ten  it  is  understood  that  her  society  finishes,  and  every 
body  goes  away. 

I  went  to  see  her  nearly  every  evening  while  I  was  in  Florence,  and 
enjoyed  my  visits  very  much,  especially  when  few  people  were  there. 
I  talked  with  her  a  great  deal  of  Alfieri,  and  she  showed  me  his 
library,  in  which  there  are  a  great  many  curious  notes,  made  by 
himself,  generally  severe,  and  often  cruelly  personal.  From  him  she 
probably  acquired  a  bold  style  of  talking,  —  which  is  very  rare  in 
women  on  the  Continent,  and  therefore  struck  me  the  more,  —  and  a 
direct,  independent  way  of  inquiring  for  your  opinion  and  judgment 
which  would  have  struck  me  anywhere.  One  evening  she  asked 
me  whether  I  did  not  think  England  had  gained,  as  a  nation,  by 
the  exile  of  the  Stuarts.  She  knew  what  I  must  think  beforehand ; 
and,  though  it  certainly  would,  as  a  general  rule,  wound  her  feelings 
to  be  answered  as  decidedly  in  the  affirmative  as  I  did,  yet  she  evi 
dently  showed  a  greater  regard  for  me,  finding  I  did  not  shrink  from 
the  proof  to  which  she  put  me.  Now,  I  say,  this  is  an  extraordinary 
woman;  for,  if  she  were  not,  she  would  not  risk  such  a  question  or 
respect  such  a  reply.  On  all  subjects  she  talks  very  well,  and  has  a 
wide  and  judicious  circumspection  in  literature,  very  rare  in  women 
on  the  Continent  ;  so  that,  on  the  whole,  I  think  her  one  of  the  best 
[specimens]  I  have  seen. 


M.  26.]  TRAVELLING  IN  SPAIN.  185 


CHAPTER    IX. 

Journey  from  Barcelona,  to  Madrid.  —  Madrid.  — -  Conde.  —  Government 
of  Spain.  —  The  Inquisition.  —  Public  Institutions.  —  Education.  — 
School  for  Deaf-mutes.  —  Bull-fights. 

To  ELISHA  TICKNOB. 

MADRID,  May  23,  1818. 

MY  last  was  from  Barcelona,  dear  father  and  mother,  just  four 
teen  days  ago.  As  you  may  well  suppose,  in  a  country  such 
as  this,  where  all  comfortable  or  decent  means  of  travelling  fail,  I 
took  the  shortest  route  to  reach  this  place ;  but,  though  the  distance  is 
but  four  hundred  miles,  I  arrived  only  this  morning,  after  a  journey 
of  thirteen  days.  I  have  no  desire  to  conceal  from  you  the  difficulties 
of  this  expedition.  All  I  have  suffered  in  all  my  absence  put  to 
gether  is  nothing,  and  less  than  nothing,  compared  to  it. 

In  the  first  place,  imagine  roads  so  abominable  that  the  utmost 
diligence,  from  four  o'clock  in  the  morning  until  seven  at  night, 
would  not  bring  us  forward  more  than  twenty-one  or  twenty-two 
miles  !  Imagine  a  country  so  deserted  and  desolate,  and  with  so  little 
travelling  and  communication,  as  to  have  no  taverns ;  for  I  do  not 
call  the  miserable  hovels  where  we  stopped  by  that  name,  because  it 
is  not  even  expected  of  them  to  furnish  anything  but  a  place  to  cover 
you  from  the  weather.  And,  in  the  last  place,  imagine  a  country  so 
destitute  of  the  means  of  subsistence,  that,  even  by  seeking  every 
opportunity  to  purcliase  provisions,  you  cannot  keep  so  provided  that 
you  will  not  sometimes  want  a  meal.  Since  I  left  Barcelona  I  have 
not  been  in  a  single  inn  where  the  lower  story  was  not  a  stable,  and 
of  course  the  upper  one  as  full  of  fleas  as  if  it  were  under  an  Egyptian 
curse  ;  twice  I  have  dined  in  the  very  place  with  the  mules  ;  and 
it  is  but  twice  that  I  have  slept  on  a  bedstead,  and  the  rest  of  the 
time  on  their  stone  floors,  (which  are  not  so  even  or  so  comfortable 
as  our  sidewalks,)  and  there  only  with  straw  and  my  blanket.  Not 
once  have  I  taken  off  my  clothes  except  to  change  them,  and  here  I 

find  myself  in  quarters  little  more  decent And  yet,  will  you 

believe  me  when  I  add  to  all  this  that  I  never  made  a  gayer  journey 


186  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1818. 

in  my  life  ?  It  is,  notwithstanding,  very  true.  My  companions  were 
excellent ;  and,  with  that  genuine,  unpretending  courtesy  and  hearty, 
dignified  kindness  for  which  their  nation  has  always  been  famous,  did 
everything  they  could  to  make  me  feel  as  few  of  the  inconveniences  of 
the  journey  as  they  could,  even  at  the  expense  of  taking  them  upon 
themselves. 

The  oldest  was  a  painter*  of  much  reputation  in  Rome,  where  he 
has  lived  seventeen  years,  and  is  now  called  to  Madrid  to  become 
Director  of  the  Academy  of  Arts,  —  a  man  of  much  general  knowl 
edge  and  some  learning,  with  great  simplicity  of  character  and  good 
ness  of  heart.  The  second  was  a  young  man,  attached  to  the  general 
staff  of  the  army,  and  the  third  an  officer  in  the  king's  body-guards, 
—  both  of  them  of  good  families,  good  manners,  and  good  dispositions. 

The  painter  was  a  little  disposed  to  complain  at  first,  because  he 
had  forgotten  how  bad  it  was,  but  he  soon  got  over  it ;  the  two 
officers  were  used  to  it ;  and  I  had  screwed  myself  up  to  the  sticking- 
place  before  I  set  off,  so  that  I  went  patiently  through  the  whole.  I 
brought  some  books  with  me,  and  among  them  was  Don  Quixote. 
This  I  read  aloud  to  them ;  and  I  assure  you  it  was  a  pleasure  to  me, 
such  as  I  have  seldom  enjoyed,  to  witness  the  effect  this  extraordinary 
book  produces  on  the  people  from  whose  very  blood  and  character  it 
is  drawn.  My  painter  in  particular  was  alternately  holding  his  sides 
with  laughter  at  Sancho  and  his  master,  and  weeping  at  the  touch 
ing  stories  with  which  it  is  interspersed.  All  of  them  used  to  beg  me 
to  read  it  to  them  every  time  we  got  into  our  cart,  —  like  children 
for  toys  or  sugar-plums,  —  while  I  willingly  yielded,  as  every  read 
ing  was  to  me  a  lesson.  In  this  way  my  journey  became  far  from 
useless  or  unpleasant,  and  I  arrived  here  perhaps  as  little  disposed 
to  complain  as  any  stranger  ever  was  who  came  in  the  same  way. 

In  Madrid  things  promise  well.  I  have  letters  to  nearly  every  one 
of  the  foreign  ministers,  to  the  Pope's  Nuncio  from  Consalvi,  the 
Pope's  Prime  Minister,  to  the  Secretaries  of  the  three  Royal  Academies, 
etc.;  and  Mr.  Erving,  our  Minister,  has  received  me  with  very  re 
markable  kindness.  A  week  hence  you  shall  know  more 

GEO.  T. 

To  ELISHA  TICKNOR. 

MADRID,  June  3,  1818. 

On  my  arrival  here,  on  the  23d  ultimo,  my  dear  father  and  mother, 

I  immediately  wrote  to  tell  you  of  my  safety And  now  I  can 

tell   you   that   I   am   as   comfortably  settled   as  I  have   been  any- 

*  Madraso. 


&  26.J  CONDE.  187 

where  in  Europe,  with  as  good  prospects  of  accomplishing  the  objects 
for  which  I  came.  But  you  like  to  have  details,  and  I  like  to  give 
them  to  you. 

In  the  first  place,  I  am  settled  in  lodgings  procured  for  me  by 
Mr.  Erving,  with  people  he  knows  to  be  honest,  and  whom  I  find  un 
commonly  neat ;  which,  you  will  observe,  are  the  two  rarest  virtues  in 
Spain.  In  the  next  place,  I  rise  early,  —  at  half  past  five,  —  and  sit 
down  to  my  books,  taking  a  cup  of  Spanish  chocolate,  so  thick  it 
may  almost  be  eaten  with  a  fork.  I  work  from  this  time  until  eleven 
o'clock.  At  this  hour  my  Spanish  instructor  comes,  and  remains  with 
me  till  one.  He  is  a  very  good  master,  —  as  good  as  there  is  in  Madrid, 
I  suppose,  —  punctual,  patient,  and  accurate.  About  half  an  hour 
after  he  is  gone  —  during  which  I  make  my  second  breakfast,  accord 
ing  to  the  fashions  of  the  Continent  —  comes  my  other  instructor; 
for,  as  I  have  nothing  to  do  here  but  to  learn  Spanish,  I  think  it  best 

to  multiply  the  means This,  however,  is  an  entirely  different 

man  from  the  other.  His  name  is  Joseph  Antonio  Conde ;  and  among 
all  the  men  of  letters  I  have  met  in  Spain,  —  and  I  believe  I  have 
seen  the  most  considerable  in  my  department,  —  he  has  the  most 
learning  by  far,  and  the  most  taste  and  talent.  He  was  formerly 
librarian  to  the  king ;  when  the  French  came  he  fled ;  but,  on  as 
surances  of  personal  safety,  returned  from  Toulouse,  where  he  had 
taken  refuge,  and  was  soon  afterwards  placed  at  the  head  of  that  de 
partment  of  the  Ministry  of  the  Interior  which  was  devoted  to 
public  instruction.  On  the  restoration  of  the  Bourbons  he  was  of 
course  displaced  ;  but  still  his  merits  and  his  honesty  were  so  noto 
rious  that  he  was  excepted  (and  I  believe  alone)  from  the  sweeping 
prosecution  of  all  who  had  served  under  Joseph,  and  permitted  to 
live  unmolested  in  Madrid,  where  he  is  much  respected.  He  is  about 
fifty  years  old,  extremely  ignorant  of  the  world,  timid  in  disposition, 
awkward  in  manners,  and  of  childlike  simplicity  and  openness  in  his 
feelings.  I  had  letters  to  him  from  Paris,  and  —  not  because  he  is 
poor,  for  he  is  not,  but  because  he  is  solitary  from  the  death  of  his 
wife,  and  unoccupied  from  the  loss  of  his  employments  —  he  comes 
and  reads  Spanish  poetry  with  me  two  or  three  hours  every  day. 
The  pleasure  he  takes  in  it  is  evidently  great ;  for  he  has  no  less  en 
thusiasm  than  learning,  and  nothing  gives  him  so  much  delight  as  to 
see  that  I  share  his  feelings  for  his  favorite  authors,  which  I  truly  do ; 
while,  on  the  other  hand,  the  information  I  get  from  him  is  such 
as  I  could  get,  probably,  from  nobody  else,  and  certainly  in  no  other 
way. 


188  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1818. 

When  I  dine  at  home,  it  is  at  five  o'clock ;  when  I  dine  abroad,  it 
is  at  four,  for  that  is  the  hour  at  Madrid ;  I  prefer  the  latest  pos 
sible,  because  it  makes  my  studying  day  longer.  After  dinner  I  walk 
until  half  past  eight  or  nine. 

The  houses  of  the  foreign  ministers  are  open  to  me  :  the  Nuncio, 
Prince  Giustiniani,  the  French  Ambassador  Prince  Montmorency 
de  Laval,  and  the  English,  who  is  Sir  Henry  Wellesley,  have 
shown  me  much  kindness  and  civility.  I  therefore  dine  abroad  nearly 
all  the  time ;  but  as  soon  as  I  can  speak  Spanish  tolerably  I  shall  seek 
Spanish  society,  which  is  almost  completely  distinct  from  the  diplo 
matic,  and  is  to  be  found  only  in  late  evening  parties,  called  tertulias, 
which  all  the  principal  people  have  every  night,  and  to  which  Mr. 

Erving  can  introduce  me  better  than  anybody  else 

Farewell. 

GEO.  T. 

To  MRS.  WALTER  CHANNING. 

MADRID,  July  25, 1818. 

....  Spain  and  the  Spanish  people  amuse  me  more  than  anything 
I  have  met  in  Europe.  There  is  more  national  character  here, 
more  originality  and  poetry  in  the  popular  manners  and  feelings, 
more  force  without  barbarism,  and  civilization  without  corruption, 
than  I  have  found  anywhere  else.  Would  you  believe  it  ?  —  I  speak 
not  at  all  of  the  highest  class,  —  what  seems  mere  fiction  and  romance 
in  other  countries  is  matter  of  observation  here,  and,  in  all  that  re 
lates  to  manners,  Cervantes  and  Le  Sage  are  historians.  For,  when 
you  have  crossed  the  Pyrenees,  you  have  not  only  passed  from  one 
country  and  climate  to  another,  but  you  have  gone  back  a  couple  of 
centuries  in  your  chronology,  and  find  the  people  still  in  that  kind 
of  poetical  existence  which  we  have  not  only  long  since  lost,  but 
which  we  have  long  since  ceased  to  credit  on  the  reports  of  our 
ancestors. 

The  pastoral  life  —  I  will  not  say  such  as  it  is  in  Theocritus  and 
Virgil,  and  still  less  such  as  it  is  in  Gesner  or  Galatea,  but  a  pas 
toral  life  which  certainly  has  its  poetical  side  —  is  still  found  every 
where  in  the  country.  I  never  come  home  in  the  evening  that  I  do 
not  pass  half  a  dozen  groups  of  the  lower  class  of  the  people  dancing 
to  their  pipes  and  castanets  some  of  their  beautifully  original  na 
tional  dances  ;  for  you  must  observe  that,  if  the  Italians  are  the  most 
musical  people  in  the  world,  the  Spaniards  are  the  most  remarkable 
for  a  natural  and  inherent  propensity  to  dance,  and  have  the  most 


M.  27.]  DUKE  DE  LAVAL.  189 

graceful  movements  and  manners.  Sometimes,  especially  if  it  be 
late,  I  find  a  lover  with  his  guitar  before  the  house  of  his  mistress, 
singing  his  passion  and  his  suffering.  Only  last  night  I  was  coming 
home  from  Sir  Henry  Wellesley's,  where  I  had  stayed  very  late  at  a 
little  ball  Lady  Wellesley  gave  in  her  garden,  —  a  kind  of  fete  cham- 
pdtre,  —  and,  as  I  came  into  the  street  where  I  live,  I  saw  a  man 
standing  in  the  middle,  and  singing  with  a  beautifully  clear  and  sweet 
voice  to  his  guitar,  which  he  played  with  great  skill.  I  stopped  to 
hear  him,  and  recognized  a  little  popular  song,  called  a  seguidilla, 
of  eight  lines,  which  I  have  in  a  large  collection  of  these  pieces, 
taken  from  the  very  lips  of  the  populace  that  composed  them.  Each 
[song]  consists  of  one  idea,  generally  a  comparison,  always  in  the 
same  metre,  and  in  eight  lines,  and  often  singularly  beautiful  and 
original 

To  ELISHA  TICK.NOB. 

MADHID,  August  1, 1818. 

I  am  sure  you  will  think  of  me  more  than  you  commonly  do  to 
day,  my  dear  father  and  mother,  for  these  anniversaries  seem  to 
be  bounds  and  limits  in  my  absence.  This  is  the  fourth  birthday  I 
have  passed  away  from  you  ;  the  next,  if  Heaven  pleases  to  spare  my 
life  and  health,  will  be  again  at  home,  to  which  I  look  forward  every 
day  with  new  earnestness  and  impatience 

There  is  one  person  that  I  have  mentioned  to  you  so  often,  that 
you  may  desire  that  I  should  tell  you  with  some  minuteness  who  he 
is.  I  mean  the  Duke  de  Laval,  French  Ambassador  here.  Since  I  have 
been  in  Europe  I  have  not  been  so  intimate  with  any  one  as  with 
him.  He  is  a  man  of  about  -fifty  years  old,  with  great  gayety,  open 
ness,  and  impetuosity  of  character,  and  with  great  talents  in  conver 
sation  ;  so  great,  indeed,  that  Mad.  de  Stae'l,  who  was  herself  the  most 
remarkable  person  perhaps  in  this  respect  that  ever  lived,  used  to 
delight  to  hear  him  talk.  He  has  strong  literary  propensities  and 
not  a  little  literary  knowledge,  and  especially  with  a  genuine  good 
ness  of  heart,  which  makes  it  necessary  for  him  to  make  those  about 
him  happy  merely  that  he  may  see  them  so.  He  is  one  of  the  old 
exiled  nobility,  who  never  gave  up  their  fidelity,  and  in  rank  he  is 
the  first  baron  of  the  kingdom,  with  the  title  of  Duke  de  Laval ;  be 
sides  that,  in  Germany  he  is,  from  services  rendered  by  his  ancestors, 
Prince  of  the  Empire,  and  in  Spain,  from  his  own  merits,  Duke  de 
San  Fernando  Luis,  and  grandee  of  the  first  class ;  in  short,  he  is, 
from  the  antiquity  and  splendor  of  his  family,  one  of  the  first,  if  not 


190  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOB.  [1818. 

the  very  first  nobleman  in  Europe,  and,  from  his  personal  talents  and 
virtues  and  fidelity,  one  of  the  chief  supporters  of  the  French  throne. 
Immediately  on  the  return  of  the  king  he  was  appointed  ambassa 
dor  here;  not  only  from  the  great  importance  of  the  post  arising 
from  the  connection  then  to  be  formed  anew  between  the  two 
branches  of  the  restored  family,  but  from  the  great  dignity  of  the 
appointment,  as  the  chief  embassy  France  sends,  since  it  is  from  a 
Bourbon  to  a  Bourbon,  and  from  the  great  personal  influence  he  has 
with  the  king  and  court. 

....  I  dine  with  him  two  or  three  times  every  week,  and  see  him 
more  or  less  every  day ;  for  if  by  accident  I  do  not  meet  him  in  the 
evening,  I  am  sure  that  in  the  morning  he  will  look  into  my  quarters, 
telling  me  that  he  came  to  see  whether  I  was  sick  ;  and  still  oftener 
he  comes  and  sits  with  me  to  read  or  to  talk,  for  he  is  the  only 
Frenchman  whose  literary  opinions  and  feelings  coincide  with  my 
own 

Now,  therefore,  my  dear  father  and  mother,  I  hope  you  know  who 
my  most  intimate  friend  here  is,  for  I  should  always  like  to  have  you 
feel  acquainted  with  those  I  know  ;  and  as  this  [letter]  is  finished,  all 
that  remains  for  me  is  to  send  you  my  love  for  all  my  friends,  whom 
I  certainly  love  more  than  ever.  .... 


JOURNAL. 

The  interior  of  the  city  of  Madrid,  taken  as  a  whole,  is  far  from 
handsome.  It  should  not,  however,  be  forgotten  that  no  city  in 
Europe  can  boast  within  its  walls  so  fine  a  walk  as  the  Prado  ;  that 
Rome  alone,  as  far  as  I  know,  has  an  entrance  equal  to  that  by  the 
gate  of  Alcala  ;  that  several  of  its  streets  are  really  fine  ;  that  good 
buildings  are  not  wanting,  especially  those  constructed  during  the 
reign  of  Charles  III.,  such  as  the  Aduana,  built  in  1769,  the  Aca- 
demia  de  San  Fernando  near  it,  and  the  Casa  de  Correos,  —  not  for 
getting  the  famous  convent  of  Las  Salosas,  the  work  of  Ferdinand 
VI. ;  but  then,  on  the  other  hand,  it  may  be  fairly  remembered  there 
is  not  a  fine  square  in  the  whole  city,  or  a  fine  church  ;  that  the 
palace  is  a  confused,  irregular,  clumsy  piece  of  architecture,  begun  in 
1737,  and  never  to  be  finished  ;  and  that  the  new  museum,  and 
everything,  in  short,  now  doing  in  the  Retiro  and  elsewhere,  is  worse 
than  all  that  has  been  done  before.  Among  all  that  Madrid  boasts  in 
this  way,  there  was  nothing  that  interested  me  so  much  as  a  few  ob 
scure  buildings,  famous  for  the  names  and  history  attached  to  them, 


M.  27.]  GOVERNMENT  OF  SPAIN.  191 

—  the  remains  of  the  house  where  Columbus  lived,  that  where  Fran 
cis  I.  was  confined,  two  or  three  of  the  famous  palaces  faithfully 
described  in  Gil  Bias,  the  convent  which  Lewis  has  made  the  scene 
of  his  monk,  etc.,  etc.,  all  of  which  might  very  likely  interest  few  per 
sons  besides.  On  the  whole,  both  for  the  past  and  the  present,  —  both 
as  a  collection  of  buildings  and  as  a  collection  of  monuments,  —  Ma 
drid  is  the  least  interesting  capital  I  have  visited. 

It  has,  however,  the  great  merit  of  being  clean.  I  do  not  know 
whether  I  should  attribute  this  altogether  to  the  character  of  the 
people,  for  they  are  not  very  neat,  and  it  is  apparent  the  keen  fresh 
air,  which  reigns  of  course  at  this  height,  dries  up  all  decaying  bodies 
immediately,  and  prevents  the  accumulation  of  filth  ;  so  that,  though 
certainly  dead  animals  are  not  uncommon  in  the  streets,  they  give 
little  or  no  disagreeable  odor.  Still,  Madrid  is  not  healthy 

Of  the  government  there  is  very  little  good  to  say.  The  king  per 
sonally  is  a  vulgar  blackguard.  I  will  not  repeat  the  instances  of 
rudeness,  vulgarity,  and  insolence  towards  his  servants  and  ministers, 
which  are  just  as  well  known  at  Madrid  as  that  he  drives  in  the 
Prado,  for  they  would  take  up  my  room  and  time  to  no  purpose. 
This,  then,  is  the  centre  of  the  government ;  and  of  what  a  govern 
ment  !  Certainly  such  a  confusion  of  abuses  never  existed  before 
since  society  was  organized,  and  never,  I  should  hope,  can  exist  again. 
In  the  first  place,  its  very  principle  —  I  mean  in  practice  —  is  that 
the  king's  decree,  which  in  theory  is  the  highest  power  in  the 
land,  may  be  resisted  and  disobeyed,  and  that  the  only  remedy  is 
to  make  more  decrees.  The  ministers  desire  to  procure  a  certain 
amount  of  money,  and  issue  a  decree  for  it ;  that  on  the  face  and 
in  any  other  country  ought  to  produce  it,  but  here  it  will  not  produce 
the  third  of  it.  The  ministers  desire  to  procure  a  certain  degree  of 
obedience,  and  the  king  decrees  it ;  but  the  obedience  may  or  may  not 
follow,  as  in  a  case  I  knew  at  Barcelona,  where  an  oppressed  indi 
vidual  demanded  simply  a  hearing  of  his  case.  The  king  ordered  it 
by  a  formal  decree  to  be  had  forthwith,  but  the  tribunal  neglected  it ; 
he  made  a  new  decree,  and  so  on  to  a  third  and  fourth,  each  more 
peremptory  than  the  preceding,  and  each  followed  by  a  similar  gross 
disobedience,  until  at  last  the  tribunal,  wearied  out  with  being  thus 
teazed,  quashed  the  process  they  were  ordered  to  examine,  and  told 
the  injured  individual  to  go  about  his  business.  Garay,  the  Minister 
of  Finance,  when  he  came  into  office  announced  his  system,  and  it 
was  supported  by  all  sorts  of  decrees,  —  decrees  to  give  a  new  prin 
ciple  of  excise,  decrees  to  remove  the  custom-house  officers  to  the 


192  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1818. 

frontiers  of  the  kingdom,  etc.,  etc.  ;  and  all  are  still  nominally  in  force 
and  actually  disobeyed,  as  I  have  myself  witnessed  again  and  again. 
The  remedy  in  these  cases  is  to  make  more  decrees,  that,  from  the 
aggregate  of  all,  obedience  enough  may  be  produced  to  keep  the 
government  in  motion.  There  is  thus  a  kind  of  tacit  compromise  be 
tween  the  government  and  its  agents,  that  the  king  shall  issue  de 
crees,  and  that  the  people  shall  be  tolerated  in  disobedience  ;  and  in 
this  way  disturbances  are  of  course  avoided.  If,  however,  on  the  con 
trary,  the  king  should  attempt  to  execute  even  one  half  of  the  decrees 
that  are  nominally  in  force,  he  would,  I  am  persuaded,  raise  a  rebel 
lion  in  a  fortnight. 

This  system,  of  course,  supposes  a  certain  degree  of  independence 
in  the  officers  of  government,  since  it  gives  them  in  fact  the  power  of 
resistance  ;  and  this  independence  leads  to  such  a  train  of  abuses  and 
corruptions  as  nobody  can  imagine  who  has  not  been  in  the  country, 
and  week  after  week  had  them  continually  pounded  into  his  ears. 
There  is  nothing  that  cannot  be  done  by  bribery ;  and  —  what  is  the 
most  extraordinary  phenomenon  I  suspect  in  legislation  —  Garay,  who 
as  minister  did  not  of  course  like  to  see  the  money  that  should  come 
to  the  Treasury  stop  in  the  hands  of  its  agents,  has  by  his  decree  of 
August  5,  1818,  instead  of  seeking  to  find  a  remedy  for  all  these  gross 
abuses,  coolly  legalized  them,  and  what  before  were  bribes  he  now 
calls  taxes.  Thus,  if  you  want  to  have  a  cause  examined  in  the 
highest  tribunal,  instead  of  feeing  the  servants  all  round,  you  pay 
$750  to  the  Treasury,  and  the  tribunal  must  hear  you.  If  a  corre- 
gidor  desired  to  have  two  villages  under  him,  which  is  contrary  to 
ancient  usage,  to  law,  and  common-sense,  he  could  formerly  do  it 
only  by  bribery  ;  now  he  pays  five  hundred  ducats  to  Mr.  Garay,  and 
nobody  can  forbid  him.  To  be  a  regidor  under  the  age  of  eighteen, 
which  is  of  course  a  solecism,  could  still  be  obtained  formerly  by  cor 
ruption,  but  was  not  therefore  the  less  illegal ;  now  it  is  legalized  for 
two  hundred  or  four  hundred  ducats  a  year.  And  finally,  after 
fifty  individual  enumerations,  in  one  sweeping  article  he  declares  that 
the  want  of  "  any  one  of  the  requisites  for  an  office  "  shall  not  be  con 
sidered  as  an  impediment  to  holding  it,  on  the  payment  of  one  third 
of  its  income  to  the  Treasury.  In  short,  there  is  hardly  anything  that 
has  ever  passed  under  the  name  of  an  abuse  of  government,  that  is 
not  legalized  and  taxed  by  this  extraordinary  decree.  The  very  first 
principles  of  the  social  compact,  all  the  political  morality  that  keeps 
society  together,  seem  to  be  put  up  at  auction  by  it,  and  in  any  other 
country  a  revolution  would  follow  ;  but  here  this  may  be  avoided  by 


J&.  27.]  INQUISITION.  193 

a  tolerated  disobedience.  So  notorious,  indeed,  and  so  impudent  has 
corruption  become,  that  it  even  dresses  itself  in  the  livery  of  law  and 
justice,  and  thus  passes  on  respected  through  all  the  divisions  of 
society. 

The  Inquisition,  which  is  so  much  talked  about,  is  more  a  bugbear 
than  anything  else,  except  in  its  influences  on  public  instruction  and 
the  freedom  of  the  press.  As  a  part  of  the  civil  government  it  is 
hardly  felt  in  individual  instances,  though  still  it  is  not  to  be  denied 
that  persons  have  sometimes  disappeared  and  never  been  heard  of 
afterwards  ;  as  one  since  I  have  been  here,  who  is  believed  by  every 
body  to  be  in  the  Inquisition,  and  another,  who  certainly  was  there 
before,  and  escaped  to  England  about  the  time  of  my  arrival. 

The  Inquisition,  however,  I  have  since  found  more  powerful  in  the 
South.  At  Granada  I  saw  a  printed  decree  posted  up,  condemning 
anew  the  heresy  of  Martin  Luther,  and,  as  it  was  then  imagined  to  be 
making  some  progress  there,  calling  on  servants  to  denounce  their 
masters,  children  their  parents,  wivee  their  husbands,  etc.,  in.  so 
many  words.  I  could  not  get  a  copy  of  it  by  ordinary  means,  and  did 
not  like  to  use  any  others,  on  account  of  the  archbishop.  Just  before 
I  was  at  Cadiz,  the  Inquisition  entered  the  apartments  of  a  young 
German  and  took  away  his  private  books,  deemed  dangerous ;  and 
at  Seville  some  of  my  ecclesiastical  friends  cautioned  me  about  my 
conversation  in  general  society,  on  account  of  the  power  and  vigilance 
of  the  holy  office  there  ;  though  certainly  nobody  was  ever  less  obnox 
ious  from  heresy  in  Spain  than  I  was,  for  my  best  friends  were  always 
of  the  Church.  The  Nuncio  and  a  shrewd  little  secretary  he  had 
even  thought  to  convert  me  by  "  putting  good  books  into  my  hands," 
though  I  should  never  have  suspected  it  if  the  Prince  de  Laval  had 
not  let  me  into  the  secret.* 

Of  police  there  is  almost  nothing :  a  little  watch  in  the  streets 
during  the  night,  and  a  few  alguazils  —  who  are  about  as  efficient  as 

*  Two  attempts  were  made  to  convert  Mr.  Ticknor  to  Catholicism.  Once  at 
Rome,  being  at  a  grand  funzione,  a  priest  who  stood  near  him  and  his  com 
panion  addressed  them  in  English,  which  he  heard  them  speaking,  anil  they 
found  he  was  an  American  of  the  name  of  Patterson.  His  history,  as  afterwards 
told  to  Mr.  Ticknor  by  Mr.  George  Harrison,  was  a  curious  one.  He  was  a 
Philadelphian,  rich,  handsome,  at  the  head  of  fashion,  the  best  billiard  player 
in  town.  He  was  still  quite  young  when  he  was  converted,  and  he  immediately 
gave  his  property  to  the  Church,  keeping  only  a  small  stipend  for  himself;  had 
his  teeth  pulled  to  destroy  his  beauty,  and  became  a  priest  and  an  ascetic. 
Patterson  often  visited  Mr.  Ticknor,  glad  to  get  a  breakfast  or  a  lunch,  and  one 
day  brought  a  Padre  Grassi  with  him.  He  was  a  man  of  talent  and  cultivation, 

VOL.  i.  9  M 


194  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1813. 

our  constables  —  during  the  day,  make  up  its  whole  muster-roll.  Nor 
is  it  wanted,  for  there  is  little  of  that  sort  of  crime  among  the  lower 
classes  —  little  of  the  petty  larceny  and  small  quarrelling  and  rioting 
—  which  a  police  can  prevent.  If  a  crime  be  committed,  it  is,  like 
the  national  character,  a  serious  and  bold  one.  Of  a  secret  political 
police  there  is  no  thought  or  suspicion.  The  government  is  not  yet 
civilized  enough  to  make  use  of  such  delicate  machinery. 

Yet,  with  all  these  gross  and  portentous  defects,  —  without  a  police 
and  with  an  Inquisition,  without  an  administration  of  justice  and 
with  legalized,  systematic  corruption  in  all  its  branches,  —  the  Span 
ish  government  (if  it  deserve  the  name)  still  seems  to  fulfil  the  great 
object  a  government  should  always  propose  to  itself;  for  a  more  quiet, 
orderly  people,  a  people  more  obedient  and  loyal,  I  have  not  seen  in 
Europe.  The  reason  is  that  this  corruption  is  still  mainly  in  the  higher 
classes,  and  in  the  agents  of  the  government,  and  that  this  strange 
contest  between  the  ministers  and  king  on  one  side,  and  the  per 
sons  they  employ  on  the  other,  is  still  unknown  to  the  classes  below  ; 
so  that,  though  the  surface  of  the  ocean  be  everywhere  vexed  and  agi 
tated,  its  depths  still  remain  tranquil  and  undisturbed.  But  the 
moment  it  becomes  the  interest  of  those  who  stand  between  the 
highest  and  the  lowest  classes  to  open  the  flood-gates,  and  let  in  the 
crimes  and  corruptions  of  the  government  upon  the  people,  and  thus 
excite  them  to  disturbances  and  opposition,  —  that  moment  the  gov 
ernment  must  come  to  an  end. 

Of  the  public  institutions  there  is  little  to  say,  but  something  to 
praise  ;  for,  though  they  are  few,  some  of  them  are  good. 

Among  the  good,  however,  is  not  the  General  Hospital,  which  is 
very  dirty  and  ill  kept.  Especially  in  its  neighborhood  all  kinds  of 
filth  are  allowed  to  accumulate,  so  that  it  is  the  very  dirtiest  spot  in 
Madrid  and  its  environs.  The  proportion  of  deaths  in  it  is  horrible, 
and  nobody  can  go  through  its  damp  lower  apartments,  and  the  ill- 
had  been  in  America,  and  used  to  talk  much  of  early  Christian  antiquities  and 
their  relation  to  the  Roman  Church.  His  visits  ceased  after  a  time,  but  Mr. 
Ticknor  was  told  afterwards  that  it  had  been  an  effort  to  convert  him. 

In  Madrid,  Cardinal  Giustiniani  made  Mr.  Ticknor  acquainted  with  a  young 
Italian  ecclesiastic,  a  pleasant  fellow,  who  lent  him  the  AbW  de  Lamennais's 
great  work  in  defence  of  the  Church,  which  had  just  come  out,  and  he  visited 
Mr.  Ticknor  often.  After  this  intimacy  had  passed  off,  he  was  told  by  the 
the  Duke  de  Laval  that  there  had  been  great  hopes  of  him. 

The  Princess  Prossedi,  the  oldest  child  of  Lucien  Bonaparte,  became  an  affec 
tionate  friend  to  Mr.  Ticknor,  and  sincerely  desired  his  conversion ;  and,  when 
he  again  met  her  in  1836,  told  him  she  had  never  ceased  to  pray  for  it. 


•<£•  27.]  PAINTINGS.  195 

ventilated  rooms  above,  without  feeling  it  to  be  a  reproach  to  a  great 
capital  to  have  such  an  establishment. 

Above  the  Museum  of  Natural  History,  in  the  same  building,  is  the 
collection  of  paintings  begun  in  1774  by  Charles  III.  It  is  rich  in 
the  Italian  school,  which  Spain  had  such  fine  opportunities  for  ac 
quiring  when  Charles  V.  possessed,  as  it  were,  all  Italy,  and  after 
wards  by  the  union  of  the  crown  of  Naples  to  the  family.  But  it  is 
the  Spanish  school  —  Velasquez  and  Murillo  —  that  shines  forth 
there  ;  and  in  looking  at  the  purity  and  dignity  and  beauty  of  its 
merely  human  forms,  I  sometimes  become  unfaithful  to  the  ideals  of 
Correggio,  Titian,  and  Raphael  that  I  had  been  accustomed  to  ad 
mire  in  Italy.  There  are,  too,  fine  pictures  at  Medina  Celi's,  and  at  all 
the  sitios,  especially  at  Aranjuez  and  the  Escurial  and  in  the  palace  ; 
and  the  king  has  commenced  a  gallery  near  the  Botanical  Garden, 
where  he  is  going  to  have  all  united  that  belong  to  himself.  It  is  the 
Marquis  of  Sta.  Cruz  —  who,  for  a  grandee,  is  a  man  of  taste  —  that 
is  at  the  head  of  all  there  is  good  in  this  establishment,  and  the  king 
suffers  him  to  do  what  he  pleases  ;  not  because  he  understands  and 
feels  what  it  would  be  to  have  a  grand  gallery  of  as  fine  pictures  as 
there  are  in  Europe,  but  simply  because  he  knows  and  cares  nothing 
about  such  things,  and,  as  he  often  says,  much  prefers  paper-hangings, 
and  will  be  very  glad  when  the  old  gilt  frames  are  taken  down  from 
his  walls. 

Among  the  public  institutions  should  also  be  numbered  those  that 
relate  to  education,  where  this  general  distinction  may  be  made,  — 
that  those  concerning  the  humbler  education  of  the  lower  classes  are 
to  a  certain  point  good,  but  those  relating  to  the  higher  branches  of 
education  and  the  higher  classes  of  society  are  bad. 

In  the  first  place,  there  are  sixty-four  women's  schools  established 
in  the  city,  and  paid  by  the  municipality,  where  the  children  of  the 
poor  receive  the  first  elements  of  education  on  a  very  good  plan  and 
to  a  very  good  effect.  After  this  follow  the  escuelas  gratuitas,  which 
are  in  the  hands  of  two  convents  of  friars,  called  the  Calasanzios ; 
who  also  do  their  duty  very  well  in  instructing  in  two  different 
schools,  established  at  the  two  sides  of  the  city,  all  who  choose 
to  come  to  them,  in  reading,  writing,  arithmetic,  geography,  the 
principles  and  dogmas  of  their  faith,  and,  if  they  choose,  Latin  gram 
mar.  These  schools  are  properly  called  escuelas  pias,  and  by  a 
vulgar  corruption  esculapios,  and  are  every  way  to  be  praised, — 
religion  being  put  out  of  the  question,  where  the  friars  certainly 
exercise  an  undue  influence.  These  two  classes  of  schools  are  so  sue- 


196  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOB.  [1818. 

cessful  that  it  is  extremely  rare  to  find  a  person  who  cannot  read  and 
write,  and  who  has  not  pretty  good,  shrewd  general  ideas  ;  but  here 
comes  a  great  hiatus  in  the  means  of  education  ;  for  while  the  Uni 
versities  of  Alcala,  Salamanca,  etc.,  are  so  fallen  that  nobody  pretends 
to  go  to  them  but  as  a  matter  of  form,  to  have  permission  to  be  an 
advocate  or  a  physician,  or  some  other  privileges  that  were  anciently 
attached  to  their  degrees,  the  capital  has  not  only  done  nothing  to 
supply  their  places,  but  has  even  destroyed  two  institutions  of  a  very 
useful  character,  and  left  nothing  for  the  intermediate  steps  in  educa 
tion  but  loose  lectures  on  botany  at  the  Botanic  Garden,  lectures 
on  physics  at  the  Gabinete,  and  similar  disjointed  instructions,  that 
make  up  no  system,  and  lead  to  no  distinct  end 

The  law  is  not  taught  at  all,  being  left  entirely  to  the  monks  of 
Alcala  and  Salamanca,  and  the  kind  decree  of  Mr.  Garay,  who  per 
mits  every  man  to  become  a  lawyer  that  will  pay  a  certain  incon 
siderable  sum  to  the  Treasury.  The  healing,  art  is  very  ill  taught  at 
their  dirty  hospital  by  five  professors,  for  medicine,  surgery,  anatomy, 
chemistry  and  clinics  ;  but  it  is  only  necessary  to  go  there  and  see 
their  collections  of  filthy  preparations,  antiquated  instruments,  and 
books  out  of  all  date  and  repute,  to  know  that  everything  is  bad  and 
wrong  here  in  medical  instruction 

There  are  a  few  institutions  for  education  here  that  should  be 
separately  mentioned  ;  because,  though  useful,  they  have  no  fixed  po 
sition  in  the  general  system.  In  the  first  place,  there  is  the  school 
for  the  deaf  and  dumb.  It  should  be  remembered,  in  speaking  of 
this,  that  the  world  owes  the  power  of  teaching  them  to  Spain,  for  it 
was  Bonet  —  to  whom  Lope  de  Vega  has  addressed  one  of  his  sonnets 
—  that  first  invented  it.  The  present  institution  is  not  a  large  or  an 
old  one.  It  was  established  on  the  return  of  the  king,  who  gives  to 
it  2,500  of  the  4,500  dollars  it  costs  yearly,  and  contains  only  twenty- 
seven  pupils.  They  are  well  taught  to  read,  write,  etc.,  and,  what  is 
more,  to  speak  intelligibly.  One  fact  I  witnessed,  and  knew  there 
fore  personally,  which  is  extremely  curious.  Not  one  of  the  pupils, 
of  course,  can  ever  have  heard  a  human  sound,  and  all  their  knowl 
edge  and  practice  in  speaking  must  come  from  their  imitation  of  the 
visible,  mechanical  movement  of  the  lips,  and  other  organs  of  enun 
ciation,  by  their  teachers,  who  are  all  Castilians  ;  yet  each  speaks 
clearly  and  decidedly,  with  the  accent  of  the  province  from  which  he 
comes,  so  that  I  could  instantly  distinguish  the  Catalonians  and  Bis- 
cayans  and  Castilians,  while  others  more  practised  in  Spanish  felt 
the  Malagan  and  Andalusian  tones.  How  is  this  to  be  explained,  but 


M.  27.]  ACADEMIES.  197 

by  supposing  an  absolutely  and  originally  different  conformation, 
of  the  organs  of  speech  ? .  .  .  . 

The  Library  owes  its  existence  to  the  French  dynasty,  for  the 
Austrian  never  thought  of  such  a  thing.  Philip  V.  founded  it  in 
1726,  and  Charles  III.  added  the  Cabinet  of  Medals.  The  printed 
books  amount  to  above  110,000,  the  MSS.  to  3,500,  and  the 
medals  to  106,000.  It  is,  like  the  libraries  of  the  Escorial,  a  mine 
for  future  discovery,  for  it  is  so  ill  arranged,  and  has  so  bad  a  cata 
logue,  and  is  so  abominably  administered,  that  all  that  is  known  of 
its  curiosities  and  rarities  is  by  accident.  The  collection  of  coins  and 
medals  is  a  perfect  confusion  worse  confounded,  and  yet  Eckhel 
stands  on  the  shelf.  I  asked  Gonzalez,  the  chief  man  of  the  whole 
establishment,  what  book  this  was,  and  he  said  it  was  an  old  book  on 
numismatics,  that  he  had  never  looked  into  !  They  have,  too,  a  lum 
ber-room,  where  there  is  a  great  pile  of  books  called  useless.  The 
second  librarian  showed  it  to  me,  advising  me  that  it  was  mere  waste- 
paper.  I  ventured,  however,  to  look  in,  and  the  second  book  I  took 
up  was  Laplace's  Mecanique  Celeste.  Ex  pede  Herculem. 

The  two  Academies  owe  their  existence  to  the  tertulia  of  the 
Marquis  de  Villafranca.  The  one  for  the  Spanish  language  was 
founded  in  1714,  and  has  only  occupied  itself  with  dictionaries, 
grammars,  orthographies,  etc.,  and  with  promoting  the  publication 
of  important  works  relating  to  the  language,  such  as  Garces'  Fuerza 
y  Vigor;  new  editions  of  old  standard  works,  such  as  Balbuena, 
etc. 

The  other,  for  Spanish  history  and  belles-lettres,  founded  in  1735, 
is  the  most  respectable  literary  establishment  in  Spain ;  for  such  men 
as  Navarrete,  Marina,  Conde,  and  Clemencin  are  enough  to  make 
an  academy  respectable  in  any  country.  They  keep  it,  too,  extremely 
pure  ;  but  the  consequence  is,  that  they  have  only  eight  or  ten  mem 
bers  ;  and  yet  the  five  volumes  they  have  published,  with  their 
"  Chronicles,"  Partidas,  Fuero  Juzgo,  etc.,  do  them  infinite  credit,  and 
show  like  the  work  of  a  great  body  of  learned  men 

Even  in  the  large  cities  and  the  capital  it  is  astonishing  to  see  how 
much  they  are  behindhand,  —  how  rude  and  imperfect  is  their  house 
furniture,  and  how  much  is  absolutely  wanting.  A  great  deal  of  the 
better  sort  is  brought  from  Paris  and  London  ;  and  when  an  ambassa 
dor  has  kept  a  carriage  two  or  three  years,  until  it  has  become  soiled 
and  worn,  he  can  sell  it,  as  they  all  do,  to  some  grandee,  for  more  than 
it  cost  him.  In  the  country  it  is,  of  course,  worse.  The  chief  persons 
in  a  village  —  I  mean  the  respectable  ecclesiastics  and  the  alcalde* 


198  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1818. 

—  often  have  no  glass-ware  in  their  houses,  no  dinner-knives,  and 
little  of  earthen  manufactory,  while  a  metal  fork  is  a  matter  of  curi 
osity.  In  agriculture  their  instruments  are  extremely  clumsy.  The 
scythes,  hoes,  shovels,  pickaxes,  etc.,  are  so  awkward,  that  I  do 
not  well  see  how  they  work  with  them  ;  their  threshing  I  have  seen 
done,  at  the  gates  of  Madrid,  on  just  such  a  threshing-floor  as  is  de 
scribed  in  the  Old  Testament,  and  by  the  identical  process  of  driving 
horses  over  the  grain ;  their  plough,  which  is  of  a  construction  sin 
gularly  clumsy  and  inefficient,  is  the  same  the  Romans  used  when 
they  were  here,  for  I  have  it  on  a  coin  of  Ceesar  Augustus  ;  and  their 
mode  of  drawing  water  by  a  horse  or  mule,  and  a  wheel,  is  the  very 
one  which,  for  its  antiquity,  is  in  Egypt  attributed  to  Joseph.  Fi 
nally,  there  are  almost  no  manufactories  of  articles  of  luxury  on  private 
speculation,  and  the  few  the  king  attempts  to  sustain  bring  him  in 
debt  at  the  end  of  every  year,  with  the  single  exception  of  the  glass 
manufactory  at  St.  Ildefonso  ;  and  yet,  there,  an  ordinary  cut-glass 
tumbler,  which  might  cost  in  England,  at  most,  four  or  five  shillings, 
costs  eight  dollars. 

The  means  and  conveniences  of  life  are,  then,  few  here,  and  the 
comforts  may,  as  a  general  remark,  be  said  to  be  unknown  in  all  that 
relates  to  the  mechanical  arts.  Their  amusements,  too,  are  hardly  less 
meagre.  The  common  people,  however,  it  should  be  observed?  are 
gay  and  light-hearted  in  their  natural  dispositions,  and  on  the  festi 
vals,  which  are  above  one  third  of  the  whole  year,  are  always  seen  in 
the  Delicias,  —  a  public  walk  outside  the  walls,  —  on  the  borders  of 
the  canal,  and  in  the  meadows  of  the  Manzanares,  dancing  to  their 
guitars  and  castanets.  Every  evening,  too,  as  I  come  home  I  find 
little  groups  of  them  dancing  the  bolero,  the  fandango,  and  the 
manchegas  in  the  streets ;  for,  if  the  Italians  are  the  most  musical 
people  in  the  world,  the  Spaniards  of  all  classes,  and  especially  the 
lowest,  are  the  most  fond  of  dancing.  Their  very  movements  seem 
from  nature  to  be  graceful,  and  their  resting  positions  picturesque. 
Except  this,  however,  and  the  universal  passion  for  toros,  they  have 
little  amusement  that  is  social,  except  in  a  kind  of  tavern,  where  they 
go  during  the  evenings  of  the  summer,  not  to  drink  strong  liquors,  — 
for  I  never  saw  a  Spaniard  intoxicated,  —  but  to  refresh  themselves 
with  iced  water,  orgeats,  and  cebada,  which,  as  they  are  the  necessaries 
of  life  in  this  burning  climate,  seem  to  be  within  the  reach  of  every 
body's  means. 

The  middling  classes  are  the  most  reserved  and  the  least  gay  of 
all  the  population  of  Spain,  —  the  mos.t  difficult  of  access,  and  the 


M.  27.]  THE  PEADO.  199 

least  interesting  to  a  stranger  when  they  are  known.  Their  amuse 
ments  are  few.  Society  they  have  almost  none  ;  for  either  —  which 
is  the  general  rule  —  they  have  very  little  culture  and  are  rather 
rude  in  their  manners,  and  then  society,  which  depends  for  its  charms 
in  this  class  entirely  on  cultivation  and  refinement,  is  an  amusement 
above  their  resources,  and  out  of  the  circle  of  their  pleasures  and 
wants,  or  else  they  are  instructed  and  refined,  and  then  the  long, 
long  oppression  of  three  centuries  of  tyranny  and  inquisition  has  taught 
them  how  dangerous  it  is  to  have  such  meetings,  where  the  heart  is 
too  apt  to  speak  what  it  feels,  especially  in  that  very  portion  of  the 
people  which  has  always  been  most  obnoxious  to  the  government 
and  clergy  ;  and  therefore  their  -doors  are  either  hermetically  sealed 
up,  or  else  when  they  meet  it  is  only  to  play  at  cards  ;  which  more 
than  one  of  them  has  told  me  he  had  introduced  into  his  parties,  for 
the  express  purpose  of  suppressing  conversation.  As  a  general  re 
mark,  therefore,  the  pleasures  of  this  class  are  to  walk  in  the  Prado, 

—  in  the  winter  from  twelve  to  two  o'clock,  and  in  the  summer 
during  the  evening,  which  they  end  by  taking  ices  at  a  coffee-house, 

—  to  go  to  the  theatre,  and  to  the  toros. 


200  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1818. 


CHAPTER  X. 

Madrid.  —  The  Prado.  —  Theatres.  —  Spanish  People.  —  The  Court.  — 
Society  in  Madrid.  —  The  Diplomatic  Corps.  —  Excursion  to  the 
Escorial.  —  St.  Ildefonso.  —  Segovia. 

JOURNAL. 

TO  me,  the  Prado  is  an.  inexhaustible  source  of  amusement.  In 
the  first  place,  it  is  in  itself  the  finest  public  walk  I  have  ever 
seen  within  the  walls  of  any  city,  not  excepting  either  the  Tuile- 
ries  or  the  Chiaja.  It  begins  at  the  gate  of  Atocha,  and,  passing  the 
superb  entrance  of  Alcala,  extends  round  to  the  convent  and  gate  of 
the  Recoletos.  Anciently  it  was  an  uneven  meadow  of  little  beauty, 
but  famous  for  being  the  scene  of  the  plots,  murders,  duels,  and  in 
trigues  of  the  city  and  court,  as  may  easily  be  gathered  from  the 
familiar  use  made  of  it  in  the  novels  of  Cervantes  and  Le  Sage,  the 
plays  of  Lope,  and  indeed  the  old  comedies  and  romances  generally. 
It  was  not,  however,  until  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  when  the 
neighboring  palace  of  Buen  Retire  rose  into  favor,  that  Charles  III. 
levelled  it,  planted  it  with  trees,  and  made  it  the  beautiful  walk  it 
now  is.  As  you  enter  it  from  the  gate  of  Alcala,  or  rather  from  the 
street  next  to  it,  you  find  yourself  in  a  superb,  wide  opening  called 
the  Saloon  ;  on  your  right  hand  a  double  walk,  and  on  your  left,  first 
the  place  where  the  carriages  parade,  and  afterwards  another  double 
walk,  the  whole  ornamented  with  three  fine  fountains,  and  eight 
rows  of  trees,  statues,  marble  seats,  etc.  During  the  forenoon,  and 
nearly  all  the  afternoon,  no  part  of  the  city  in  summer  is  so  silent 
and  deserted  as  this  ;  and  yet,  when  the  heats  will  permit,  it  is  a  spot 
which  of  all  others  here  most  solicits  you  by  its  freshness,  its 
solitude,  and  its  shade.  At  five  o'clock  the  whole  Prado  is 
watered,  to  prevent  the  dust  which  would  otherwise  be  intolerable. 
Just  before  sundown  the  carriages  and  crowd  begin  to  appear; 
and  about  half  an  hour  after  the  exhibition  is  in  its  greatest  splen 
dor.  On  your  left  hand  are  two  rows  of  carriages,  forming  a 
complete  line,  slowly  moving  up  and  down  on  each  side,  while 
the  king  and  the  infantas  dash  up  and  down  in  the  middle 


JL  27.]  THEATRES.  201 

with  all  the  privileges  of  royalty,  and  compel  everybody  on  foot 
to  take  off  his  hat  as  he  passes,  and  everybody  in  a  carriage  to 
stop  and  stand  up Every  time  I  see  this  singularly  pictu 
resque  crowd,  mingled  with  the  great  number  of  the  officers  of  the 
guard  that  are  always  there  in  splendid  uniforms,  and  contrasted  with 
the  still  greater  number  of  monks  and  priests  in  their  dark,  severe 
costumes,  I  feel  persuaded  anew  that  it  is  the  most  striking  moving 
panorama  the  world  can  afford.  At  about  three  quarters  of  an  hour 
after  sunset,  when  the  Prado  is  usually  quite  full,  the  Angelus,  or 
evening-prayer  [bell],  sounds  in  the  neighboring  convent,  and  the  row 
of  carriages  stops  as  if  by  magic,  while  everybody  on  foot  becomes 

fixed  as  a  statue  and  prays 

As  to  theatres,  Madrid  has  but  two,  and  these  have  always  been  in 
a  struggle  for  their  existence,  and  even  now  can  hardly  be  said  to 
have  gained  a  decided  victory  over  the  monks,  and  the  Inquisition. 
The  Principe  is  in  general  the  best,  since  Mayquez,  who  is  an  eleve 
of  Talma,  and  not  a  bad  imitation  of  his  master,  though  little  else, 
acts  there  ;  but  the  Cruz  is  more  interesting  to  me,  because  more  of 
the  original  national  pieces,  written  before  the  French  dynasty  came 
in,  are  represented  there.  I  have  been  often  to  both  as  a  means  of 
learning  the  language,  especially  if  any  of  the  old  plays  were  repre 
sented,  and  really  all  that  is  national  in  it  delights  me  more  and 
more.  The  ancient  Spanish  costumes,  which  are  strictly  observed, 
are  so  splendid  and  graceful,  the  ancient  manners,  which  are  no  less 
imitated  and  observed,  have  something  so  original  and  noble,  and  the 
plays  themselves  are  written  in  a  style  of  poetry  so  proud  and  elevated, 
though  often  with  bad  taste,  that  when  the  play  is  by  Lope,  or  Tirso 
de  Molina,  or  Montalban,  or  Calderon,  I  think  I  had  rather  go  to  the 
Spanish  theatre  than  to  any  other  except  the  English.  After  the 
principal  piece,  some  of  their  beautifully  graceful  national  dances,  the 
bolero,  the  polo,  the  fandango,  or  the  manchegas,  are  performed  with 
castanets,  and  the  whole  ends  with  what  is  called  a  saynete,  a  little 
piece  less  farcical  than  our  afterpieces,  which  is  to  a  regular  play  what 
an  anecdote  is  to  a  novel,  and  represents  to  the  life  the  manners  of  the 
lower  or  middling  classes,  which  the  Spanish  actors  play  with  more 
spirit  and  less  caricature  than  those  of  any  other  nation.  The  great 
sin  of  both  theatres  is,  that  the  majority  of  the  longer  pieces  they 
represent  are  translations  from  ordinary  French  comedies,  though  it 
must  be  confessed  they  are  becoming  better  in  this  respect ;  and  that 
the  national  plays  are  coming  more  into  fashion,  and  are  oftener 
acted. 

9* 


202  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1818. 

An  opera-house  they  have  not,  nor  are  operas  much  in  the  Spanish 
taste  and  character,  any  more  than  tragedies.  Philip  V.,  however, 
who  brought  in  their  foreign  tastes,  built  an  opera-house  in  1730,  but 
Ferdinand  VII.,  for  reasons  which  I  do  not  know,  has  pulled  it 
down.  Operas,  notwithstanding  this,  are  given  alternately  in  the  two 
theatres 

The  great  amusement  —  the  national  and  prevailing  amusement, 
which  swallows  up  all  the  rest  —  is  the  fiestas  de  toros,  the  bull-fights. 
It  is  purely  and  exclusively  Spanish,  and  the  passion  with  which  it 
is  sought  by  all  classes,  and  with  which  it  always  seems  to  have  been 
sought,  is  inconceivable  to  one  who  has  not  witnessed  it ;  and  would 
be  incredible  upon  common  testimony,  if  we  had  not  the  histories 
of  the  gladiators  and  cir censes,  for  examples  before  us.  Of  their  ear 
liest  origin  I  have  no  knowledge,  nor  am  I  aware  that  any  can  be 
obtained  ;  for  almost  nothing  has  been  written  upon  them 

The  first  intimations  I  find  of  them  are  in  the  oldest  Spanish  Chron 
icle,  —  that  dark  chaos  from  which  the  elements  of  Spanish  poetry 
and  history  are  alike  drawn,  and.  which  is  itself  hardly  less  interest 
ing  and  instructive  than  either.  There  it  is  said,  incidentally,  that 
there  were  bull-fights  in  Saldafia,  in  1124,  on  the  marriage  of  Alfonso 
VII.;  and  there  is  an  ancient  tradition,  which  I  think  I  have  noticed 
in  his  Chronicle,  that  the  Cid  was  a  famous  toreador,  and  that  he  was 
the  first  that  ever  fought  bulls  on  horseback.* 

They  take  place  only  in  the  summer,  and  during  the  months  when 
the  heat  is  not  extreme,  ....  and  it  is  always  on  Mondays,  both 
morning  and  afternoon,  —  in  the  morning  with  six  bulls,  and  in  the 
afternoon  with  eight  bulls ;  but  each  part  of  the  day,  if  any  one  of 
the  royal  family  is  there,  —  which  can  seldom  fail,  —  the  people  de 
mand  an  extra  victim  by  acclamation,  and  it  is  uniformly  granted. 
Great  preparations  are  made  long  beforehand.  Fine  bulls  are  brought 
from  all  parts  of  the  kingdom,  —  the  best  from  La  Mancha,  Navarre, 
and  Andalusia,  and  are  pastured  near  Madrid.  Two  days  before  the 
festival  they  are  driven  in,  and,  to  my  great  dismay,  I  have  several 
times  met  them  in  my  evening  rides,  for  they  do  not  always  treat  the 
persons  they  meet  so  civilly  as  they  treated  Don  Quixote  near  Sara- 

gossa On  their  arrival  they  are  shut  up  in  a  pasture  near  the 

amphitheatre,  and  on  Sunday  evenings  great  crowds  of  the  common 
people  go  out  to  see  them,  as  if  it  were  a  show 

*  Mr.  Ticknor  sketches  in  many  pages  the  growth,  ceremonies,  and  mode  of 
carrying  on  the  bull-fights,  —  a  long  and  minute  description,  which  he  after 
wards  arranged  as  an  article  for  the  "North  American  Review,"  July,  1825, 
Vol.  XXI.  p.  62. 


&.  27.]  BULL-FIGHTS.  203 

At  length  the  long-desired  day  arrives,  and,  for  all  purposes  of  busi 
ness,  Madrid  is  like  a  Protestant  Sunday.  The  whole  city  throngs  to 
the  circus,  even  to  the  very  lowest  class  of  the  populace  ;  and  I  have 
often  seen  more  waiting  on  the  outside — merely  to  hear,  and  echo  and 
enjoy,  the  shouts  and  stories  that  come  from  within,  because  they 
could  not  afford  to  pay  the  price  of  admittance  —  than  the  entire 
amphitheatre  could  contain.  For  myself,  I  cannot  speak  with  any 
of  the  skill  or  assurance  of  a  connoisseur.  I  never  went  but  twice, 
and  then  stayed  only  long  enough  the  first  time  to  see  four  bulls 
killed,  and  the  second  time  three,  for  it  was  physically  impossible  for 
me  to  stay  any  longer.  The  horrid  sights  I  witnessed  completely 
unmanned  me,  and  the  first  time  I  was  carried  out  by  one  of  the 
guards,  and  the  second  time  I  was  barely  able  to  get  out  alone.  Still, 
however,  I  saw  all  the  operations  and  manoeuvres,  as  much  as  if  I 
had  been  there  a  hundred  times,  and  had  all  the  technics  and  ped 
antry  of  the  art  at  my  command ;  and  what  was  wanting  in  the  prac 
tice  and  experience  of  a  hardened  amateur  was  fully  made  up  to  me 
by  the  vivacity  with  which  I  felt  everything,  and  the  deep  impression 

its  splendors,  its  dangers,  and  its  cruelties  made  on  my  memory 

Nothing  can  prevent  the  crowd  from  going  if  they  have  the  money 
necessary  to  pay  their  admittance ;  and  if  they  have  it  not,  instances 
have  been  known  where  they  have  sold  everything  they  possessed 
in  the  world  to  get  it ;  and  ....  I  was  shown  a  man  who  was  so 
absolutely  destitute  of  all  means,  that  he  married  the  evening  pre 
vious,  as  the  only  way  of  obtaining  them.  Nothing,  in  short,  can 
hinder  them,  not  even  the  heats,  which  hinder  everything,  and 
almost  bring  life  itself  to  a  pause  in  Madrid;  and  if  they  cannot 
get  seats  on  the  shady  side  of  the  amphitheatre,  they  will  sit  in  the 
sun  during  one  of  the  burning  noons  of  July  and  September ; 
and  do  it  so  heedlessly,  that  the  first  bull-fights  given  after  the 
dog-days  this  year  sent  a  crowd  of  patients  to  the  hospital,  thirty- 
eight  of  whom  died  within  ten  days  afterwards  of  fevers  caught 
there. 

Nor  are  these  the  only  fatal  effects.  The  interest  the  common  peo 
ple  take  in  everything  relating  to  this  festival  rises  afterwards,  at  any 
moment  of  excitement,  to  passion  and  guilt.  Quarrels  arise  about 
a  favorite  picador  or  banderillero,  that  are  never  appeased  ;  the  details 
of  one  of  these  shows  become  the  source  of  family  bitterness  for  life  ; 
and  only  a  few  days  ago,  one  Monday  afternoon,  as  I  was  just 
going  into  the  palace  of  the  Prince  de  Laval  to  dinner,  a  man  stabbed 
his  brother,  who  fell  dead  before  me  at  the  door  I  was  entering,  in 


204  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR. 

consequence  of  a  difference  that  had  thus  arisen  in  the  amphitheatre 
in  the  morning.*  .... 

It  ia  a  curious  and  interesting  sight  to  see  the  people,  when,  from 
their  union  in  a  great  mass,  they  feel  their  own  strength,  and  when, 
from  their  excitement,  they  enter  into  the  rights  of  their  own  impor 
tance  and  power,  —  when,  in  fact,  they  feel  themselves  to  be  what  they 
are,  and  become  for  the  moment  free  in  consequence  of  it.  Eoyalty 
is  little  respected  on  Mondays  in  Madrid,  and  therefore  whatever  the 
people  persist  in  requiring  in  the  amphitheatre, — even  to  the  extreme 
cruelty  of  putting  tire  upon  the  bull's  back  to  goad  his  fury,  —  is 
always  granted,  to  avoid  unpleasant  consequences.  Their  exclama 
tions  and  cries,  too,  which  from  the  excitement  under  which  they  are 
uttered  often  seem  revolutionary,  are  sometimes  curious,  and  such  as 
on  any  other  occasion  would  be  found  offensive  and  dangerous.-  Of 
an  uncommonly  brave  and  persevering  bull,  several  young  men  in 
my  neighborhood  cried  out  repeatedly  that  he  was  fit  to  be  the  presi 
dent  of  the  Cortes,  and  of  another,  who  shrunk  from  the  contest  after 
receiving  only  two  blows  from  the  picador,  apparently  the  same  per 
sons  kept  shouting,  ....  that  he  was  as  cowardly  as  a  king 

The  bull-fights  are,  indeed,  a  warrant  and  apology  for  all  sorts  of 
licentiousness  in  language,  in  the  same  way  the  Roman  shows  were ; 
and,  like  the  amphitheatre  of  Flavius,  that  of  Madrid  would  furnish  a 
little  anthology  of  popular  wit,  which,  though  it  might  strongly 
savor  of  vulgarity,  could  hardly  fail  to  be  very  characteristic  and 
amusing 

After  all,  however,  the  people  are  not  so  bad  as  might  reasonably 
be  anticipated  from  all  the  means  that  seem  to  be  studiously  taken 
to  corrupt  them.  The  lower  class  especially  is,  I  think,  the  finest 
materiel  I  have  met  in  Europe  to  make  a  great  and  generous  people  ; 

*  Talking  about  bull-fights  with  the  Duke  de  Laval,  he  spoke  of  the  women's 
love  of  them,  and  said  that,  at  the  last,  one  of  the  royal  princesses  had 
driven  the  pica  into  the  bull's  neck,  —  the  nail  to  which  are  attached  the 
colors  of  the  province  from  which  the  bull  came.  Mr.  Ticknor  said  that  he 
could  scarcely  believe  that  of  any  woman,  but  that  she  was  a  Portuguese,  and 
might  be  pretty  coarse.  "Well,"  said  the  Ambassador,  "you  are  going  to 
court,  of  course,"  naming  the  day ;  "  come  and  stand  by  me  when  the  royal 
family  pass,  and  I  will  make  her  boast  of  it."  When  the  time  came,  Mr. 
Ticknor  took  his  place  by  the  Duke  ;  the  ladies  of  course  stopped  to 
speak  with  the  Ambassador  of  France.  When  the  Portuguese  princess  came, 
the  Duke  said  to  her  that  he  heard  they  had  a  fine  bull-fight  on  Monday.  "  0 
yes,"  she  said;  "and  I  did  something  towards  its  success,  for/  drove  in  the 
pica" 


&.  27.]  THE  SPANISH  PEOPLE.  205 

but  this  material  is  either  unused  or  perverted.  Talent  is  certainly 
not  wanting,  and  instruction  to  a  certain  point  is  very  general. 
Nearly  everybody  can  read  and  write,  and  if  they  can  do  no  more,  it 
is  because  the  monks,  who  manage  all  the  education  of  the  country, 
find  it  for  their  interest  to  stop  them  here.  In  disposition,  and  turn 
of  character,  they  vary  in  different  provinces.  In  Catalonia  they  are 
industrious  and  active  ;  in  Aragou,  idle,  proud,  and  faithful ;  in 
Castile,  cold  and  rude,  but  still  attaching  themselves  easily  to  those 
who  are  kind  to  them  ;  and  in  Andalusia,  light-hearted,  giddy,  cruel, 
and  revengeful.  Galicia  furnishes  water-carriers  to  all  Madrid,  and 
they  have  among  themselves  a  tremendous  police,  which  insures  the 
honesty  of  the  individuals,  and  sometimes  even  inflicts  secretly  the 
punishment  of  death  ;  but  the  government  tolerates  without  acknowl 
edging  it,  because  the  Gallegos  are  not  unjust,  and  their  opportu 
nities  and  temptations  to  dishonesty  are  so  great,  that,  though  you 
never  hear  of  an  instance  of  it,  much  is  due  to  their  police.  They -are 
the  hardiest  and  most  enterprising  of  all  the  Spaniards,  and,  at  the 
season  of  the  harvest,  may  be  found  all  over  Castile  and  Estrama- 
dura,  and  even  in  Portugal,  gathering  it  for  the  idle  inhabitants  ; 
some  remain  afterwards  as  servants,  and  some  are  to  be  found  in  little 
shops  and  inns  everywhere  in  Spain  ;  but  when  they  have  accumu 
lated  a  subsistence,  they  are  almost  sure  to  go  home  to  die  in  peace 
at  last.  These  different  characters  are  so  distinctly  marked  in  the 
different  provinces,  that  it  seems  as  if  you  had  changed  country  every 
time  you  pass  from  one  to  another  ;  biit  still  there  are  some  traits  in 
common  to  them  all.  One  of  the  most  striking  —  and  one.  it  seems  to 
me,  on  which  many  of  their  national  virtues  are  founded  —  is  a  kind 
of  instinctive  uprightness,  which  prevents  them  from  servility.  I  have 
seen  the  lowest  class  of  the  people,  such  as  gardeners,  bricklayers,  etc., 
who  had  never  seen  the  king,  perhaps,  in  their  lives,  suddenly  spoken 
to  by  him  ;  but  I  never  saw  one  of  them  hesitate  or  blush,  or  seem 
confounded  in  any  way  by  a  sense  of  the  royal  superiority.  And  in  a 
country  where  the  noxious  luxury  of  a  great  number  of  servants  is  so 
oppressive,  it  is  curious  to  see  with  what  familiarity  they  treat  their 
masters  ;  joining  in  the  conversation  at  the  Duchess  of  Ossuna's,  for 
instance,  while  they  wait  at  table,  correcting  the  mistakes  of  their 
statements,  etc.,  but  in  all  cases  and  under  all  circumstances  with 
out  for  an  instant  offending  against  the  most  genuine  and  unaffected 
respect.  The  higher,  however,  you  go  up  in  society  in  Spain,  the  less 
the  different  classes  are  like  what  their  situation  ought  to  make  them. 
As  the  means  of  respectable  instruction  fail  almost  altogether,  the 


206  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1818. 

middling  class  has  by  no  means  the  strong,  decided  character  it  has  in 
other  countries.  Except  on  the  sea-coast,  they  cannot  well  have  the 
ambition  of  accumulating  wealth  ;  because  it  will  not  give  them  rank 
in  society ;  and  as  they  are  almost  inevitably  ignorant,  they  in  general 
lead  an  idle,  dull,  and  unworthy  life  ;  though  still,  when  you  do  find 
a  man  who,  by  the  mere  force  of  his  character,  has  raised  himself  above 
the  level  of  this  class,  you  are  pretty  sure  to  find  something  marked 
and  distinguished.  The  highest  class  of  all  is  deplorable.  I  can 
conceive  nothing  more  monotonous,  gross,  and  disgraceful  than  their 

manner  of  passing  their  day  and  their  life 

I  was  presented  at  court,  as  it  is  better  a  stranger  should  be  in 
Spain ;  and  afterwards  went  occasionally  to  see  the  show,  which  is 
sometimes  magnificent.  Not  one  of  the  royal  family  is  able  to  manage 
even  the  common  formal  conversation  of  a  presentation,  except  Don 
Francisco ;  and  the  king  was  guilty  of  the  marked  folly  of  always  talk 
ing  to  me  about  his  Father  in  Rome,  with  extreme  interest,  making  in 
quiries  how  he  looked,  etc.,  as  if  he  were  notoriously  the  most  affection 
ate  son  in  the  world.  The  besa-manos  (kissing  hands)  is,  however,  the 
grand  exhibition,  and  in  fact  is  unique  in  its  kind,  for  nothing  like  it  is 
to  be  seen  at  any  other  court  in  Europe.  The  ceremony  is  this.  On  the 
great  court  festivals,  the  magnificent  saloon  of  the  ambassadors  is  dressed 
out  in  all  its  gala  ;  the  royal  family,  in  all  the  royal  paraphernalia, 
stand  in  a  row  opposite  to  the' entrance,  and  as  many  of  their  subjects 
as  have  a  court  dress,  or  a  dress  that  warrants  them  to  appear  at 
court,  come  and  kiss  their  royal  hands  in  token  of  allegiance.  Of 
course  all  in  office  come  in  their  spendid  uniforms,  all  above  a  lieu 
tenant  of  the  military,  all  the  nobles  of  the  realm,  the  heads  of  the 
monastic  orders  in  their  humble,  solemn  habits,  the  king's  body-guards 
with  their  finery,  etc.,  etc.  ;  in  short,  as  mingled  and  splendid  a  show 
of  magnificent  dresses,  contrasted  and  broken,  occasionally,  by  the 
plain  and  sober  suits  of  the  clergy,  as  I  can  well  imagine,  and  in  no 
small  number,  too,  for  I  one  day  remember  to  have  seen  between 
thirteen  and  fourteen  hundred,  who  thus  voluntarily  passed  under 
the  yoke.  It  was  there  I  first  saw  the  distinguished  men  whose 
names  were  so  famous  in  Spain  and  in  Europe,  only  a  few  years  ago,  — 
Palafox,  the  Marquis  of  St.  Simond,  the  Duke  of  Infantado,  the  Maid 
of  Zaragoza,  dressed  as  a  captain  of  dragoons,  and  with  a  character  as 
impudent  as  her  uniform  implies,  etc.,  etc.  ;  and,  indeed,  aside  from 
this,  the  mere  show  is  more  magnificent  than  can  be  seen  at  any  other 
court  in  Europe  ;  but  this  is  all  there  is,  at  Madrid,  that  can  interest 
or  amuse  any  stranger  at  the  palace  for  a  moment. 


M.  27.]  THE  SPANISH  PEOPLE.  207 

With  a  middling  class  thus  oppressed  and  ignorant,  a  nobility  so 
gross  and  unworthy,  and  a  court  worse  than  all  below  it,  the  strangers 
whom  accident,  curiosity,  or  occupation  bring  together  at  Madrid  take 
refuge  in  one  another's  society.  The  points  of  union  and  meeting 
are  the  houses  of  the  different  persons  belonging  to  the  corps  diplo 
matique,  and  thus  all  the  strangers  who  have  been  bred  in  a  more 
refined  and  more  respectable  state  of  society,  together  with  a  few 
Spanish  families,  who  from  living  in  foreign  countries  have  caught 
more  or  less  of  foreign  culture  and  manners,  —  like  the  Duchess  of 
Ossuna,  the  Marchioness  de  Mos,  the  Marquis  de  Sta.  Cruz,  the 
Prince  of  Anglona,  etc.,  —  make  a  society  completely  apart  from  the. 
Spanish,  and  with  a  tone  and  character  altogether  different.  A  more 
decided  proof  of  the  fallen  state  of  manners  and  refinement  could 
hardly  be  given  than  this  elegant  society,  which,  subsisting  entirely 
by  itself,  is  the  object  of  considerable  jealous  repugnance  to  the 
higher  classes  of  the  Spaniards,  who  yet  gladly  come  to  its  luxurious 
dinners  and  splendid  fites. 

When  I  went  into  Spanish  society,  it  was  at  the  houses  of  the 
Marquis  de  St.  lago,  the  Marquis  de  Sta.  Cruz,  at  Mr.  Pizarro's,  the 
Prime  Minister,  at  the  Duchess  of  Ossuna's,  etc.,  etc.  I  mention 
these  because  they  are  the  best.  That  at  the  Marquis  de  St.  lago 
was  the  most  truly  and  unmixed  Spanish  that  was  open  to  for 
eigners  in  Madrid  ;  that  is,  the  most  so  where  there  was  much 
elegance  and  show,  for  he  is  one  of  the  first  of  the  first  class  of 
grandees,  and  extremely  rich.  At  his  house,  the  tertutia  assembled 
between  ten  and  eleven  every  night,  and  was  composed  of  the  chief 
nobility  who  would  consent  to  go  out  of  their  own  houses.  The 
amusement  was  gaming,  and  almost  all  the  gentlemen  smoked ; 
many  came  dirtily  dressed,  and  all  were  noisy,  rude  in  their  manners, 
and  to  a  certain  degree  gross.  It  was,  however,  considered  the  most 
elegant  and  fashionable,  as  it  certainly  was  the  most  numerous  and 
splendid,  merely  Spanish  tertulia  in  Madrid  that  I  saw.  I  went  to 
it  rarely,  and  always  only  to  see  the  Marquis's  sister,  Paulita,  one 
of  the  sweetest  and  most  interesting  creatures  in  the  world,  —  young, 
beautiful  as  a  sibyl,  full  of  genius  and  enthusiasm,  and  disinter 
estedly  refusing  to  be  married  that  she  may  keep  her  fortune,  which 
is  immense,  in  her  own  hands,  and  remit  its  income  to  her  father, 
who  is  an  exile,  and  whose  title  and  wealth  have  been  taken  away 
and  given  to  his  child.  She  was  the  only  Spanish  young  lady  at 
Madrid  whose  conversation  could  interest  for  a  moment,  unless  it 
were,  indeed,  a  very  well  educated  daughter  of  the  Duchess  de  Eibas  ; 


208  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1818. 

and  she  was  the  only  person  at  this  tertulia  of  the  St.  lago  family, 
who  could  have  induced  me  to  go  there  a  second  time,  for  any  pur 
pose  but  that  of  persuading  myself  anew  of  the  rudeness  and  corrup 
tion  of  the  highest  class  in  Spain. 

The  Marchioness  de  Sta.  Cruz,  who  is  certainly  the  most  elegant 
Spanish  woman  in  her  manners  at  Madrid,  did  not  make  a  regular  ter 
tulia  at  her  house,  because  she  went  at  ten  o'clock  every  night  to  her 
mother's,  the  Duchess  of  Ossuna ;  but  until  that  time  she  received 
all  who  came.  The  Spaniards,  however,  evidently  did  not  like  it,  for 
they  could  not  feel  the  charm  of  such  manners  as  the  Marchioness  has 
learnt  in  better  societies  and  more  refined  countries,  so  that  after  all 
the  tone  here  was  more  foreign,  and  there  were  more  visitors  from 
the  corps  diplomatique  than  from  all  the  rest  of  the  capital. 

At  the  Prime  Minister's  were  to  be  found  high  officers  of  the  gov 
ernment,  those  who  desired  to  become  so,  pretenders  to  place,  and 
those  who  feared  to  lose  it,  et  hoc  genus  omne,  together  with  the 
gentlemen  of  the  diplomacy  and  the  foreigners  they  introduced.  Mr. 
Pizarro  seldom  came,  for  he  really  had  not  time.  He  is  —  I  write 
after  his  fall  and  exile  —  an  honorable,  honest  man,  with  respectable 
talents,  firmness,  and  perseverance,  but  often  unpleasant  in  society 
from  great  personal  vanity.  His  wife  —  who  is  still  to  be  called 
young,  and  will  long  be  beautiful  —  was  the  most  estimable  and  re 
spectable  Spanish  woman  I  knew  in  Madrid  ;  besides  that,  she  had 
received  an  uncommonly  good  education  abroad.  She  was  born  in 
Constantinople,  and  lived  there  many  years,  so  that  she  yet  speaks 
modern  Greek  easily,  as  her  nurse  was  an  Albanian  ;  she  also  speaks 
Turkish  tolerably.  After  her  father's  return, — for  he  was  minister 
there,  —  she  married  Mr.  Pizarro,  and  has  been  with  him  at  several 
of  the  courts  of  Europe,  and  added  elegance  of  manners  to  her  other 
accomplishments,  while  grace  and  beauty  were  born  with  her.  In 
her  own  house,  where  she  lived  without  show,  because  her  husband 
administered  the  royal  favor  and  was  still  poor,  she  was  simple  and 
kind  ;  and  in  the  diplomatic  parties,  where  she  was  almost  always 
found,  she  was  sought  for  her  unaffected  manners  and  her  elegant 
conversation. 

The  house,  however,  to  which  I  went  most  frequently,  was  that  of 
the  Duchess  of  Ossuna,  —  a  woman  extraordinary  alike  from  her 
rank,  her  talents,  and  her  wealth.  I  know  not  how  many  titles  she 
unites  in  her  person  and  her  family,  nor  how  many  fortunes  have 
served  to  form  the  foundation  of  her  immense  incomes,  but  the  num 
ber  is  great.  At  one  time  during  the  Revolution  she  was,  notwith- 


M.  27. J  .       SOCIETY  IN   MADRID.  209 

standing  all  this,  reduced  by  the  French  to  nothing,  for  every  one  of 
her  estates  was  confiscated,  and  herself  with  all  her  children  and 
grandchildren  shut  up  in  one  small,  poor  house  in  Cadiz  during  the 
whole  siege.  She  has  often  described  to  me  how  gayly  and  happily 
she  lived  there ;  and  when  I  was  in  Cadiz,  I  was  told  she  continued 
during  the  whole  siege  the  most  light-hearted  person  in  the  garrison. 
She  keeps  the  most  splendid  Spanish  establishment  in  Madrid,  and 
passes  every  Thursday  at  her  country-seat,  where  I  used  sometimes  to 
go  with  the  Duke  de  Laval,  to  take  a  late  dinner,  and  ride  into 
Madrid  in  the  evening  ;  but  still  she  did  not  like  to  have  a  great  deal 
of  company  at  her  tertulias  ;  and  as  there  was  no  gaming,  not  many 
of  the  higher  class  of  Spaniards  liked  to  come.  She,  however,  al 
ways  had  her  children  ;  and  her  children  are  the  first  persons  at  court, 
both  by  their  talents  and  culture 

Of  course  all  these  houses  were  but  places  where  I  went  only  now 
and  then,  either  to  exercise  myself  in  speaking  Spanish,  to  see  for 
eign,  new,  and  strange  manners,  or  to  meet  one  or  two  persons  that 
interested  me.  The  society  on  which  I  relied  for  rational  conversation 
and  agreeable  intercourse  was  the  foreign  and  diplomatic,  which  had 
its  stated  rendezvous  and  amusements,  five  evenings  every  week,  and 
afforded  a  refuge  on  the  others. 

On  Sunday  evening  there  was  always  a  quiet,  sober  party  at  Sir 
Henry  Wellesley's.  He  himself  is  a  man  of  not  more  than  common 
talents,  but  of  sound  judgment,  and  altogether  a  respectable  English 
gentleman 

The  chief  secretary  of  the  legation,  Mr.  Vaughan,  is  a  Fellow  of 
Oxford,  about,  five-and-thirty  years  old,  who,  though  in  the  opposi 
tion,  has  made  his  way  by  talent  and  learning,  and  is  soon  to  become  a 
minister.  For  five  years  he  had  a  travelling  fellowship,  and  employed 
it  in  going  through  the  interior  of  Asia,  crossing  down  from  Russia 
into  Persia,  and  coming  back  by  Palestine  and  Greece  ;  altogether  one 
of  the  most  romantic  expeditions  I  have  ever  heard  of,  and  he  him 
self  altogether  an  interesting  man 

On  Tuesday  evening  everybody  went  to  the  soiree  of  the  Countess 
de  Balbo,  wife  of  the  ambassador  from  Sardinia.  She  is  now  very 
old,  and  being  a  Parisian,  and  daughter  of  a  man  distinguished  by  his 
rank  and  talents,  had  to  pass  through  many  vicissitudes  during  the 
Revolution,  and  relates  a  vast  number  of  interesting  anecdotes  of 
French  society,  from  the  time  of  Buffon  and  Franklin  down  to  the 
elevation  of  Bonaparte.  The  Count  was  no  doubt  the  most  learned 
and  sound  man  in  Madrid.  He  has  passed  a  great  part  of  his  life  in 

N 


210  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1818. 

study  and  learned  society  ;  is  himself  the  head  and  chief  support  of 
the  Academy  of  Turin  ;  and,  after  being  ambassador  all  over  Europe, 
has,  since  I  left  Madrid,  been  called  home  to  be  Minister  of  State,  and 
Director  of  Public  Instruction,  —  an  office  for  which  he  asked  on  ac 
count  of  the  quiet  it  would  give  him  in  his  old  age  ;  at  the  same  time 
he  refused  the  splendid  appointment  of  viceroy  of  the  island  of  Sar 
dinia,  which  was  sent  to  him  while  I  was  at  Madrid.  I  used  to  dine 
with  him  often  in  an  unceremonious  way,  and  enjoyed  much  the 
overflow  of  his  very  extensive  and  judicious  learning,  for  he  is  in 
this  respect  one  of  the  most  distinguished  men  I  have  seen  in  Europe. 
The  Duke  de  Laval,  when  there  was  any  doubt  or  question  about 
anything  that  could  not  be  settled,  always  used  to  say,  "  Eh  bien  done, 
demandez  k  Monsieur  de  Balbe,  car  il  sait  tout "  ;  and  when  I  heard 
him  converse  I  often  thought  so.  Csesar,  his  only  son,  a  young  man 
about  two  years  older  than  myself,  on  whose  education  he  has  be 
stowed  unwearied  pains,  was,  among  those  of  his  own  age,  what  his 
father  was  in  the  oldest  class,  —  the  first  at  Madrid.  He  has  much 
learning,  good  taste,  and  sense  for  all  that  is  great  and  beautiful, 
extraordinary  talents,  and  an  enthusiasm  which  absolutely  preys 
upon  his  strength  and  health.  But,  though  he  is  passionately  fond 
of  letters,  his  whole  spirit  is  eaten  up  with  political  and  military  am 
bition.  He  thinks  of  nothing  but  Italy,  and,  taking  his  motto  from 
his  favorite  Dante,  "  Ahi  serva  Italia  di  dolore  ostello,"  etc.,  is  con 
tinually  studying  the  Principe  and  Arte  di  Guerra,  and  dreaming 
over  Machiavelli's  grand  plan  to  consolidate  it  all  into  one  great, 
splendid  empire,  with  the  Alps  for  a  barrier  against  the  intrusions  of 
the  North.  I  knew  him  intimately,  for  there  was  seldom  a  day  we 
did  not  meet  at  least  once,  and  I  shall  always  remember  him  with 
affection,  for  it  is  rare  in  Europe  to  meet  a  young  man  with  so  high 
talents  and  so  pure  a  character. 

On  Wednesday  evening  there  was  a  convocation  at  the  house  of  the 
Minister  of  Russia.  He  has  of  late  played  a  bold  part  in  Spanish 
politics,  and  a  year  ago  had  such  personal  and  immediate  influence 
with  the  king,  that  he  could  nominate  or  displace  a  ministry  at  will ; 
but,  since  the  unfortunate  sale  of  the  Russian  fleet,  his  power  has  de 
clined.  In  all  respects,  however,  he  is  a  curious  study  in  the  great 
book  of  the  knowledge  of  the  world.  He  is,  on  the  whole,  to  be  called 
ignorant  of  books,  and  is  certainly  an  idle,  lazy  man  ;  but  his  genius 
is  strong,  bold,  and  original,  and  he  makes  his  way  in  the  palace 
merely  by  the  imposing  weight  of  talent.  Au  reste,  he  is  careless  and 
capricious,  and  the  chief  part  he  plays  in  society  is  at  the  whist-table, 


M.W.]  THE  DIPLOMATIC  CORPS.  211 

of  which  he  is  immoderately  fond.  His  wife,  Mad.  de  Tatistcheff,  is 
a  Polish  woman,  old  enough  to  have  a  daughter  by  an  earlier  hus 
band  grown  up,  but  still  beautiful,  and  an  accomplished  coquette. 
The  daughter,  who  has  been  educated  entirely  in  England,  is  without 
much  talent  or  beauty  ;  natural,  simple,  and  good,  and  with  a  French 
and  an  English  girl,  whom  Mad.  de  Tatistcheff  has  in  her  family, 
made  a  pleasant  society.  Wednesday  evening,  however,  was  the  most 
splendid  evening  in  the  week  at  Madrid.  Mad.  de  Tatistcheff  had  fitted 
up  a  neat  theatre,  and  the  party  always  began  by  a  little  French  farce 
or  comedy,  which  some  of  the  diplomatists  performed  well,  and  which 
was  amusing.  She,  however,  never  took  a  part  in  it,  but  reserved 
herself  for  an  exhibition  of  more  taste  and  effect  afterwards  ;  I  mean 
the  singularly  striking  and  beautiful  one  of  making  natural  pictures, 
for  which  her  fine  person  admirably  fitted  her.  This  art  was  in 
vented  by  the  famous  Lady  Hamilton.  When  Goethe  was  in  Italy, 
he  was  bewitched  with  it,  and  when  he  afterwards  published  his 
Wilhelm  Meister,  gave  such  glowing  descriptions  of  the  effect  it  is 
capable  of  producing,  that  all  Germany  took  the  passion  for  a  while, 
and  it  has  ever  since  been  more  successfully  practised  there  than  any 
where  else.  Mad.  Schulze  of  Berlin,  who  represents  in  public,  is 
now  the  most  admired  ;  but  I  never  was  where  she  exhibited,  and 
those  who  have  seen  both,  say  Mad.  de  Tatistcheff  is  more  beautiful, 
and  does  it  with  more  taste  and  talent 

Compared  with  the  magical  effect  it  produces,  the  most  beautiful 
picture  is  cold  and  dead,  and  the  most  beautiful  woman  uninterest 
ing  and  prosaic  ;  for  here  you  have  all  the  fancy,  taste,  and  poetry  of 
art,  glowing  with  life  and  starting  into  reality  ;  and  while  on  the 
one  hand  the  painter's  talent  chooses  the  attitude,  arranges  the  cos 
tume,  and  distributes  the  lights  and  the  colors,  on  the  other,  the 
warm,  living  form  and  the  eye  beaming  with  intelligence  and  feeling 
come  to  his  aid,  and  give  a  grace  beyond  the  reach  of  art.  I  shall 
therefore  always  remember  Mad.  de  Tatistcheff's  representations  of 
Guercino's  Penitent  Magdalen,  of  Domenichino's  Sibyl,  of  Raphael's 
St.  Cecilia,  and  indeed  all  the  many  wonderful  living  pictures  she 
made,  as  among  the  most  striking  pleasures  I  have  enjoyed  in  Europe. 
Indeed,  in  all  respects,  if  her  husband  made  a  great  figure  at  court 
and  in  the  palace,  she  sustained  his  reputation  well  in  her  drawing- 
room  ;  for  her  Wednesday -evening  fgte,  beginning  with  a  play  and 
these  beautiful  magical  exhibitions,  and  ending  as  it  always  did  with 
a  ball,  was  the  most  splendid  one  in  the  week. 

On  Thursday  evening,  however,  Lady  Wellesley  followed  her,  — 


212  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1818. 

liaud  passibus  (equis,  to  be  sure,  —  but  still  with  a  beautiful  entertain 
ment.  She  had  the  finest  garden  in  Madrid,  and  trusting  to  the 
invariable  climate  of  Castile,  used  to  illuminate  it  fancifully,  and  re 
ceiving  her  company  there,  made  it  a  gay  and  graceful  fete  champtitre, 
with  dancing  on  the  grass,  music,  a  supper,  etc.  Nothing  of  the  sort 
could  be  done  with  more  taste,  and  perhaps  if  the  majority  of  voices 
were  taken,  this  would  have  been  called,  from  the  genuine,  light- 
hearted  enjoyment  it  gave,  the  pleasantest  evening  in  the  week. 

On  Saturday  evening  Prince  Scilla,  the  Neapolitan  Ambassador, 
and  the  richest  of  all  the  corps  diplomatique,  gave  a  concert  and  a 
ball.  He  is  one  of  the  best  natured,  kind-hearted,  honorable  gentle 
men  in  the  world,  —  and  his  family  and  legation  are  like  himself,  — 
and  Saturday  evening,  therefore,  was  a  pleasant  one,  because  it  was 
impossible  to  be  in  Prince  Scilla's  house,  without  feeling  you  were 
with  kind,  good  people  ;  and  besides  this,  there  was  amusement  enough 
and  no  ceremony 

Two  persons  I  must  not  forget,  for  they  were  the  two  I  knew  the 
most  intimately  and  familiarly.  The  first  was  my  own  minister, 
Mr.  Erving,  to  whom  I  was  introduced  by  Mr.  Jefferson  ;  and  it 
was  a  matter  of  satisfaction  to  me  to  find  my  country  represented  by 
a  man  who  was  so  much  respected,  both  by  the  diplomacy,  the  gov 
ernment,  and  the  Spaniards.  As  to  the  opinion  of  the  diplomacy,  I 
know  it  as  well  as  I  can  know  anything  ;  and  Mr.  Pizarro  and  Mr. 
Garay  made  so  little  mystery  of  respecting  Mr.  Erving  more  than  any 
other  foreign  minister  at  Madrid,  that  it  gave  a  little  umbrage  to 
them  all,  as  three  of  them  have  told  me,  and  as  I  easily  saw  without 
being  told.  Moreover,  the  king's  conduct  to  him  personally  at  the 
levee,  after  he  received  the  news  of  Jackson's  taking  Pensacola,  and 
when,  the  Prince  Laval  had  triumphantly  told  me  the  night  before, 
and  M.  de  Tatistcheff  had  told  Caesar  de  Balbo,  he  would  not  venture 
to  be  seen  at  court,  sufficiently  showed  what  was  the  influence  of 
his  name  and  character,  which  he  has  entirely  founded,  as  everybody 
there  knows,  on  two  rules,  —  never  to  ask  anything  however  incon 
siderable  from  anybody  as  a  favor,  and  never  to  cease  to  insist  upon 
what  he  ought  to  claim  as  a  right.  In  his  own  house  I  found  him 
very  pleasant,  for  he  has  talent,  a  clear  head,  and  considerable  knowl 
edge,  though  very  little  literature.  His  establishment  was  elegant, 
and  he  might  easily  have  made  it  more  so  if  he  had  chosen ;  but  it 
was  not  necessary,  for  he  was  quite  on  a  par  with  most  of  the  ministers 
there.  In  short,  I  am  clear  there  was  not  one  of  the  diplomacy  who 
understood  his  business  better,  or,  taking  the  whole  capital  together, 
was  more  respected  than  Mr.  Erving. 


M.  27.]  THE  DIPLOMATIC  CORPS.  213 

The  other  person  I  refer  to  is  the  Prince  and  Duke  de  Laval  Mont- 
morency,  of  whom  I  have  already  spoken  so  often.  He  is  one  of 
the  most  distinguished  noblemen  in  Europe,  for  he  traces  his  ancestry 
up  to  the  remotest  age  of  the  French  Monarchy,  and  there  finds  his 
progenitor  to  be  the  first  nobleman  in  the  country  who  received  the 
Christian  religion,  and  who  thus  gave  to  the  family  the  title  of 
"  Premier  Baron  Chretien,"  which  they  still  wear  in  their  arms. 
Since  then  there  has  hardly  been  one  of  its  generations  that  has  not 
been  marked  by  some  of  the  great  offices  of  the  kingdom.  They 
have  repeatedly  been  married  into  the  royal  family  of  the  Bourbons, 
have  acquired  successively  the  title  of  Count  of  Buchoven,  and 
Prince  of  Laval  from  the  German  Empire,  Duke  of  Laval,  and  peer 
of  the  realm  in  France,  and  Duke  of  San  Fernando- Luis  and  grandee 
of  the  first  class  in  Spain,  besides  all  sorts  of  knighthoods,  crosses,  com- 
manderships,  etc.,  etc.,  and  besides  having  been,  more  than  once,  at  the 
head  of  affairs  at  home,  and  having  often  gained  great  battles  abroad. 
I  have  never  yet  found  anybody  who  was  not  ready  to  say  that  these 
honors  are  well  placed  on  the  prince  that  now  wears  them  ;  for  to 
more  than  common  talents,  and  more  than  common  acquired  knowl 
edge,  he  adds  a  genuine  goodness  that  delights,  above  everything  else, 
in  promoting  the  happiness  of  all  around  him.  In  the  last  point  he 
gave  his  own  character  exactly  one  evening,  when  he  said  to  a  lady 
that  accused  him  of  wishing  to  disoblige  her  :  "  Moi,  madame  ]  vous, — 
vous  dites  cela  de  moi  ?  de  moi,  qui  ai  toujours  eu  1'ambition,  que  de- 
puis  le  plus  humble  valet,  jusqu'  au  Roi,  tout  le  monde  disc,  quand 
je  passerai,  c'est  un  excellent  homme  ;  il  a  le  cceur  profondement 
bon "  ;  and,  in  truth,  I  never  saw  him  otherwise.  Mad.  de  Stael 
loved  him  very  much,  and  during  her  last  sickness,  when  he  hap 
pened  to  be  at  Paris,  used  to  beg  him  to  come  and  see  her  every  day, 
that  she  might  enjoy  his  brilliant  conversation  ;  for,  even  at  Paris,  he 
was  famous  for  this  talent,  and  at  Madrid  was  unique.  His  dinners 
were  by  far  the  pleasantest  there,  for  whatever  there  was  of  elegant 
talent  and  literature  at  Madrid  were  friends  at  his  house,  and,  wher 
ever  he  was,  the  conversation  took  a  more  interesting  and  cultivated 
turn  than  elsewhere.  The  daily  rides  that  I  made  with  him,  and 
Caesar  de  Balbo,  are  among  the  brightest  spots  in  my  life  in  Europe, 
though  perhaps  I  never  disputed  so  much  and  so  hotly,  in  a  given 
time,  in  my  life,  for  though  he  is  nearly  fifty  years  old,  and  has  passed, 
with  unmoved  tranquillity,  through  the  revolutions  of  the  last  thirty 
years,  without  taking  part  in  any,  he  is  in  discussion  as  prompt, 
excitable,  and  enthusiastic  as  a  young  man  of  twenty  ;  and  as  Csesar 


214  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1818. 

de  Balbo  is  the  model  of  all  that  is  bold,  vehement,  and  obstinate,  we 
used  to  have  fine  battles.  Indeed  the  Duke  de  Laval,  with  whom  I 
seldom  failed  to  pass  three  or  four  hours,  every  day,  in  society  some 
where,  is  one  of  the  very  few  men  I  have  met  in  Europe  in  whom  I 
never  saw  anything  to  discourage  the  regard  his  general  character  and 
conduct  inspired,  and  whom  I  shall  always  remember  with  unmingled 
gratitude  and  affection 

EXCURSION  TO  THE  ESCORIAL. 

Just  before  I  left  Madrid  I  took  five  days,  from  September  1st  to 
the  6th,  to  visit  the  Escorial  and  St.  Ildefonso,  the  two  most  famous 
royal  "  residences,"  and  on  all  other  accounts  two  of  the  most  inter 
esting  spots  in  Spain.  I  set  out  early  on  the  morning  of  the  1st,  by 
the  horse-post,  which  is  the  most  agreeable  mode  of  conveyance  the 
country  affords,  and  after  traversing  the  dreary,  barren  waste  round 
Madrid,  in  which  for  the  space  of  thirty  miles  I  saw  only  two  mea 
gre,  dirty  villages,  and  hardly  a  solitary  tree,  I  at  last  entered  the 
royal  domains  of  the  Escorial,  where  there  are  woods,  if  there  is  noth 
ing  else.  These  domains  extend  for  many  miles  round  the  convent, 
and,  even  before  I  entered  them,  its  domes  and  towers  springing  up 
on  the  dark,  barren  sides  of  the  mountain,  upon  whose  declivity  it 
stands,  were  already  visible.  I  spurred  my  horse  with  eagerness  to 
greater  speed,  and  just  before  eight  o'clock  reached  the  little  village 
that  has  been  formed  round  it,  having,  in  this  expeditious  and  not 
unpleasant  mode  of  travelling,  gone  thirty-five  (English)  miles  in  four 
hours. 

The  Escorial  is  as  vulgar  a  name  as  the  Tuileries.  It  signifies  the 
place  where  scoria  are  thrown,  and  it  is  so  called  because  there  was 
formerly  an  iron  manufactory  near,  that  threw  its  scoria  on  this  spot. 
Its  more  just  name  is  San  Lorenzo  el  Reale,  since  it  is  a  royal  con 
vent,  dedicated  to  Saint  Lorenzo.  It  is  a  monument  of  the  magnifi 
cence,  the  splendor,  the  superstition,  and  perhaps  the  personal  fears 
of  Philip  II.  It  was  at  the  battle  of  St.  Quintin,  which  happened  on 
the  day  of  this  saint,  —  and  which  is  painted  in  fresco  by  Giordano 
round  the  chief  staircase  of  the  convent,  —  that  he  made  a  secret  vow 
to  build  a  monastery  in  his  honor,  if  he  succeeded  and  escaped.  The 
battle  was  gained,  and  in  1567  he  began  the  convent,  led  to  this 
spot  by  the  circumstance  that  he  had  often  hunted  here,  and  perhaps 
by  his  gloomy  disposition,  which  seemed  always  to  delight  in  barren 
ness  and  desolation.  ....  The  convent  itself  is  worthy  of  the  severest 


&.  27.]  EXCURSION  TO  THE  ESCORIAL.  215 

influences  of  the  most  monkish  ages.  It  is  the  only  establishment  I 
have  ever  met  that  satisfied  all  the  ideas  I  had  formed,  of  the  size  of  a 
monastery  such  as  Mrs.  Radcliffe  or  Dennis  Jasper  Murphy  describes, 
and  which  is  here  so  immense  that,  in  the  space  occupied  by  its  chief 

staircase  alone,  a  large  house  might  be  built For  two  days  I 

enjoyed  walking  about  continually  with  the  monks,  the  prior,  and 
the  Bishop  of  Toledo,  who  happened  to  be  there. 

The  church  of  the  convent  would  be  reckoned  among  the  large 
churches  of  Rome,  and  the  beautiful  ones  of  Italy.  The  instant  I 
entered  it,  its  light,  disencumbered  arches  and  dome,  its  broad,  fine 
naves,  and  its  massy,  imposing  pilasters  reminded  me  of  Palladio's 

works  at  Venice Immediately  below  the  chief  altar  is  the 

Pantheon,  the  burial-place  of  the  kings.  It  is  small  and  circular, 
made  of  the  richest  marbles,  and  ornamented  with  bronze  and  pre 
cious  stones,  yet  in  a  very  plain,  simple  style  of  architecture,  and,  from 
the  solemn  air  that  breathes  through  the  whole  of  itr  much  better 
fitted  to  its  purpose,  than  the  gorgeous  burial-place  of  the  Grand 
Dukes  of  Tuscany.  The  sarcophagi  are  all  of  bronze,  and  all  alike, 
ranged  one  above  another  to  the  height,  I  think,  of  six,  and  each 
plainly  marked  with  the  name  of  him  whose  ashes  it  contains.  Seven 
kings  rest  here,  beginning  with  Charles  V.,  and  seven  queens,  since 
none  are  interred  in  this  sacred  and  glorious  cell  but  such  as  have 

given  succession  to  the  empire The  libraries  are  an  important 

part  of  this  establishment.  The  lower  one  contains  the  printed  books, 
all  neatly  bound  in  the  same  plain  livery,  with  their  edges  gilt,  and 
their  names  written  on  the  gilding,  which  is  thus  placed  outwards 
instead  of  a  label,  and  gives  a  very  gay  appearance  to  the  collection. 
It  was  Philip  II.  who  began  it,  and  therefore  it  contains  a  great  many 
books  in  Spanish  literature  that  are  now  extremely  rare  ;  though,  as 
there  is  neither  order  nor  catalogue,  it  is  almost  impossible  to  find 
them,  and  those  I  observed  were  hit  upon  by  chance.  The  library 
above,  which  is  the  manuscript  library,  is,  as  everybody  knows,  a 
great  mine  which  is  yet  but  imperfectly  explored.  The  whole  num 
ber  is  4,300,  of  which  1,805  are  Arabic,  567  Greek,  a  great  num 
ber  of  curious  Castilian,  which  chiefly  engaged  my  attention,  etc., 
etc.  Philip  III.  added  to  it  an  immense  number  of  Arabic  manu 
scripts,*  which  he  took  at  sea,  on  board  a  vessel  bound  to  Morocco  ; 
it  would  now  be  beyond  all  price,  but  that  the  greater  part  of  it 
was  burnt  in  1671.  Since  the  time  of  Philip  IV.,  who  finished  the 

*  There  is  a  complete  Catalogue  of  the  Arabic  manuscripts  by  Cassini,  in  two 
folios.  Madrid,  1770. 


216  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1818. 

ornaments  of  both  the  halls  of  the  libraries,  little  has  been  added  to 
either. 

Among  the  manuscripts  here  should  be  mentioned  those  of  their 
church  service,  which  are  the  largest  and  most  magnificent  in  their 
style  of  execution,  illumination,  etc.,  I  ever  saw,  far  before  the  famous 
ones  of  Florence.  There  are  220  of  them,  each  so  large  that  they  can 
be  carried  only  by  two  men  on  their  shoulders.  In  the  collection  of 
reliques  is  a  Greek  manuscript  of  the  Four  Gospels,  pretended  —  in 
an  inscription  that  looks  to  be  about  the  fourteenth  century  —  to  have 
belonged  to  St.  Chrysostom.  It  is  certainly  ancient,  written  in  initial 
capitals,  etc.,  and  deserves  attention,  if  it  has  not  received  it. 

The  pictures  which  have  been  accumulated  here  are  numerous, 
and  scattered  through  the  whole  building,  —  in  the  aisles,  the  corri 
dors,  the  galleries,  and  even  the  very  cells.  The  chief  collections, 
however,  are  in  the  church,  the  sacristy,  and  the  two  halls  where  the 
monks  hold  their  chapters.  Of  the  Italian  schools  the  most  abun 
dant  is  the  Venetian,  but  it  is  of  course  the  Spanish  that  prevails, 
among  whose  masters  the  most  frequent  are  Mudo,  Carvajal,  etc. 
There  are  a  great  many  prodigiously  fine  works  by  Spagnoletto  and 
Bassano,  a  few  by  Correggio,  Caracci,  and  Titian,  and  even  the  Roman 
school,  with  its  great  head,  is  not  wanting.  In  statuary,  too,  they  have 
something,  especially  a  Saint  Lorenzo  of  great  beauty,  that  is  evi 
dently  of  ancient  Greek  workmanship,  transformed  by  the  power  of 
the  church  to  what  it  now  is  ;  and  a  Christ  Crucified,  by  Benvenuto 
Cellini,  very  fine,  which  he  mentions  in  his  Life,  and  which,  if  I  mis 
take  not,  is  singular  among  the  works  of  this  original  and  eccentric 
genius. 

With  all  these  resources,  with  the  society  of  the  monks,  who  are  in 
number  one  hundred  and  twenty-three,  and  with  the  delightful  music 
of  the  church,  which,  whether  heard  in  its  lofty,  solemn  naves,  or 
echoed  through  the  interminable  aisles,  that  make  the  whole  convent 
a  labyrinth,  falls  on  the  ear  like  magic,  —  with  these  resources  I  passed 
two  short  and  very  happy  days  at  the  Escorial. 

It  was  at  sundown,  on  the  evening  of  the  2d,  that  I  took  leave  of 
the  prior  and  the  bishop,  and  mounted  my  post-horse  for  St.  Ilde- 
fonso.  We  galloped  up  the  side  of  the  mountain,  by  a  fine  bright 
evening,  and  descending  partly  down  on  the  other  side,  came  to  St. 
Ildefonso,  —  or,  as  it  is  commonly  called  here,  La  Granja,  —  at  ten 
o'clock,  severely  chilled,  though  in  the  plain  the  heat  of  the  dog-star 
still  rages  ;  for  St.  Ildefonso  is  situated  where  no  other  monarch's 
palace  is,  in  the  region  of  the  clouds,  since  it  is  higher  up  than  the 


M.  27.]  ST.   ILDEFONSO.  217 

crater  of  Vesuvius,  and  precisely  at  that  elevation  where  the  great 
clouds  are  commonly  formed  in  summer.* 

I  sent  my  letter  of  introduction  to  Count  Guaiaqui,  a  Peruvian 
nobleman  of  talent  and  an  immense  fortune,  who  was  six  years  cap 
tain-general  of  his  country,  and  has  since  refused  the  viceroyalty  of 
Mexico.  He  called  on  me  immediately,  and  brought  the  governor  of 
the  place,  who  offered  me  all  sorts  of  civilities,  and  arranged  my  visit 
here,  and  at  Segovia,  in  the  pleasantest  manner.  The  following  morn 
ing  I  began  my  operations,  conducted  by  Count  Guaiaqui,  and,  in  the 
course  of  a  most  beautiful  day,  enjoyed  all  that  is  to  be  seen  at  this 
royal  sitio.  It  is  entirely  the  work  of  Philip  V.  Before  his  time 
there  was  nothing  here  but  a  farm-house,  belonging  to  a  convent  of, 
Segovia,  which  he  bought,  struck  by  the  beauty  of  the  situation  and 
the  refreshing  coolness  of  the  climate,  which  afforded  a  delightful  re 
treat  from  the  oppressive  heat  of  Madrid  in  summer. 

Philip  was  a  Frenchman,  who  knew  of  nothing  and  conceived  noth 
ing  more  beautiful  than  Versailles.  La  Granja,  therefore,  is  its  minia 
ture.  There  are  three  gates  of  entrance  which  form  the  front  of  the 
establishment,  —  the  little  village  is  within  these  gates,  and  before  the 
palace,  to  which  it  serves  only  as  offices  and  an  appendage.  Farther 
up  is  the  palace  ;  then  come  the  gardens  with  the  -very  beautiful 
fountains  ;  and  then  the  whole  is  closed  up  by  the  mountain  covered 
with  fine  woods,  and  filled,  until  lately,  with  all  sorts  of  game 

The  first  thing  we  went  to  see  was  the  glass  manufactory,  a  royal 
plaything  established  by  Philip  in  1726  ;  but,  what  is  remarkable,  the 
only  royal  manufactory  in  Spain  that  yet  pays  its  own  expenses. 
The  work  is  ordinary,  and  in  general  trifling 

From  the  manufactory  we  went  with  the  governor,  who  came  to 
find  us,  to  the  palace.  It  is  a  mere  repetition  of  Versailles  in  its  out 
line  and  arrangement,  and  like  that,  has  a  fine  fagade  towards  the 
gardens,  and  a  chapel  in  front  where  are  deposited,  in  a  plain  sar 
cophagus,  the  bones  of  its  founder.  The  interior  is  finer,  and  better 
preserved  than  that  of  the  palace  of  the  Escorial,  and  has  still  .its  fur 
niture  and  a  part  of  its  pictures,  though  the  best  are  in  Madrid 

When  we  had  finished  all  this  we  went  to  walk  in  the  gardens,  where 
my  new  friends  showed  me  everything,  ....  the  fountains,  and  the 
great  reservoir  on  the  side  of  the  mountain  that  supplies  them,  all 
still  reminding  me  of  Versailles  in  miniature,  though  the  situation 
and  scenery  are  vastly  finer. 

After  this  I  went  to  dine  with  Count  Guaiaqui,  —  the  governor 

*  See  Humboldt,  "Configuration  du  sol  de  1'Espagne." 
VOL.    I.  10 


218  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1818. 

promising  me,  that,  if  I  would  come  to  the  gardens  at  five  o'clock,  all 
the  fountains  should  play,  —  a  great  compliment  to  me,  or  rather  to 
my  letter  of  introduction  from  the  Prince  Laval.  At  five  o'clock, 
then,  I  was  there,  and  soon  afterwards  the  show  began.  It  was  a 
delicious  evening,  one  worthy  of  the  Bay  of  Naples,  and  the  sun  was 
fast  setting  behind  the  mountain,  to  the  westward  of  us.  The  village 
was  all  assembled  in  the  gardens  to  see  the  fete,  and  added  not  a  little 
to  its  picturesque  effect,  by  giving  life  and  movement  to  the  scene. 
The  first  exhibition  was  of  sixteen  fountains,  in  a  line  ascending  the 
hill,  and  composed  of  several  hundred  jets  d'eaux,  so  arranged  as  to 
make  one  coup  d'ceil  of  singular  beauty  and  variety.  The  setting 
sun  fell  upon  the  whole  series,  and  each  had  its  little  rainbow  dan 
cing  on  the  white  spray  it  threw  up,  while  the  foliage  of  the  trees 
amidst  which  it  was  seen,  and  which  sometimes  opened  and  some 
times  closed  the  view,  made  it  seem  the  work  of  enchantment.  I 
thought  of  the  gardens  of  Armida,  and  the  celestial  fountain,  which 
Southey,  in  his  "  Kehama,"  has  formed  of  the  blended  and  conflicting 
elements,  but  for  once  the  reality  exceeded  the  efforts  of  imagination. 
I  could  not  be  weary  with  looking  at  it  ;  but  at  last  my  conductor 
took  me  by  the  elbow,  and  I  went  to  see  the  fountain  of  Diana,  which 
is  imitated  from  Versailles,  and  the  most  poetical  thought  I  have  ever 
seen  in  this  kind  of  ornament ;  but  the  imitation  is  finer  than  the 
original,  the  baths  of  Diana,  which  is,  I  suppose,  the  most  magnificent 
single  fountain  in  the  world  ; . . .  .  but  there  was  nothing  so  struck  and 
delighted  me  as  the  first  coup  (Fail,  compared  with  which  all  there 
is  at  Versailles  is  a  mere  awkwardly  combined  plaything. 

....  In  the  morning  I  rode  on  to  Segovia.  ....  The  first  thing  I 
iid  was  to  present  a  letter  from  Count  Guaiaqui  to  the  bishop,  —  a 
very  respectable  old  man,  who  from  an  income  of  $  30,000  a  year 
gives  $  25,000  to  the  poor,  and  denies  himself  even  the  common  lux 
ury  of  a  coach,  which  his  age  and  infirmities  really  require.  He  gave 
me  his  secretary,  a  lively  young  Peruvian,  for  my  guide  to  see  the 

eity The   first  thing  we  went  to  see  was  the  cathedral,  a 

curious  and  regular  mixture  of  the  Gothic  and  Greek  architecture, 
but  otherwise  not  interesting.  The  next  was  the  Roman  Aqueduct, 
called  by  the  people  "  Puente  del  Diablo,"  for  they  have  no  idea 
such  a  stupendous  work  could  be  achieved  by  a  personage  of  less  au 
thority  and  power.  ....  It  begins  outside  of  the  city,  and  traverses 
the  valley  on  a  hundred  and  fifty-nine  arches  in  the  upper  row,  but 
not  quite  so  many  below,  and  goes  to  the  hill  where  stands  the  castle. 
It  is  built  of  square-hewn  stones,  united  without  cement  or  clamps, 


M.  27.]  SEGOVIA.  219 

and  is  nevertheless  so  perfectly  preserved,  that  it  still  serves  the  pur 
pose  for  which  it  was  built  as  well  as  when  it  was  new  ;  nobody 
knows  its  date,  but  it  did  not  seem  to  me  to  be  of  the  good  ages 
of  Roman  architecture,  though  it  is  certainly  one  of  the  most  solid 
and  magnificent  monuments  that  have  come  down  to  us  from  an 
tiquity 

My  little  secretary  now  resigned  me  into  the  secular  hands  of  the 
general-commandant,  to  whom  I  also  had  letters,  and  who  carried  me 
immediately  to  see  the  military  school  of  which  he  is  the  head.  It  is 
in  the  Alcazar,  or  castle,  a  remarkable  building,  whose  front  indicates 
a  great  antiquity,  and  whose  ornaments  and  style  are  of  the  richest, 
most  gorgeous  Moorish  architecture.  It  was  once  the  residence  of  the 
kings  of  Castile,  whose  statues  in  wood,  with  those  of  the  kings  of 
Oviedo  and  Leon,  from  700  to  1555,  are  all  preserved  here.  For  a 
long  time,  however,  it  was  used  only  as  a  castle  of  state,  and  the  last 

person  that  was  confined  here  was  Escoiqiiiz,  in  1808 It  was 

Charles  III.  that  established  the  military  school  here,  where  one  hun 
dred  and  thirty-two  young  men  of  noble  birth  are  educated  for  the 
army.  They  have  eight  professors  (all  officers),  ....  a  respectable 
^laboratory,  a  good  philosophical  apparatus,  and  an  excellent  military 

library  of  about  twenty  thousand  volumes I  am  satisfied  there 

is  no  public  institution  I  have  seen  in  Spain  that  is  established  on  so 
good  a  footing,  and  so  well,  regularly,  and  successfully  conducted  as 
this  is 

Early  in  the  morning  of  the  6th  I  mounted  my  post-horse  and  gal 
loped  over  the  mountains,  ....  arrived  at  Madrid  at  four  o'clock,  so 
little  fatigued,  that,  after  dining  and  resting,  I  wrote  all  the  evening, 
and  at  ten  o'clock  went  to  Prince  Scilla's,  where  I  danced  till  mid 
night. 


220  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOE.  [1818. 


CHAPTER   XI. 

Journey  through  Southern  Spain. — Aranjuez.  —  Cordova.' — Visit  to 
the  Hermits.  —  Granada.  —  The  Alhambra.  —  Malaga.  —  Gibraltar. 
—  Cadiz. 

JOURNAL. 

ON  the  evening  of  September  13,  after  dining  with  a  few  friends 
at  Mr.  El-ring's,  I  mounted  my  post-horse  at  his  door,  to  leave 
Madrid.  It  would  be  very  ungrateful  in  me  to  say  I  left  it  without 
regret.  I  had  come  there  with  sad  and  dark  thoughts  ;  but,  instead 
of  the  solitary,  melancholy  life  I  had  imagined  I  was  to  lead,  I  found 
myself,  on  the  whole,  more  pleasantly  situated  there,  and  passed  my 
time,  as  I  think,  in  some  respects,  more  profitably,  than  I  have  done 
anywhere  in  Europe.  All  these  thoughts  were  present  to  my  mind, 
with  the  recollections  of  the  many  kind  and  excellent  friends  I  had* 
made  there,  as  I  rode  slowly  and  sadly  down  Calle  de  Alcala  ;  passed 
for  the  last  time  the  Prado,  in  all  its  splendor  and  gala,  where  I 
regretted  even  to  the  king's  coach  that  was  just  entering  ;  and  for 
cing  my  way  through  the  crowd  at  the  Gate  of  Atocha,  and  in  the 
Delices,  and  galloping  over  the  bed  of  the  Manzanares,  now  dried  up, 

entered  the  dreary  plain  round  Madrid The  night  was  so 

beautiful,  so  mild,  so  calm,  that  it  might  well  have  stilled  agitations 
and  regrets  more  serious  than  mine  ;  .  .  .  .  and  before  I  arrived  at 
Aranjuez  I  felt  myself  already  hardened,  and  prepared  for  the  long 
and  difficult  journey  I  had  commenced. 

The  approach  to  this  Royal  Sitio  *  is  announced  many  miles  before 
hand,  by  the  long  rows  of  trees  that  line  each  side  of  the  road,  by 
the  magnificent  stone  bridges  that  are  thrown  over  every  little  stream 
and  valley,  and  by  circular  openings,  ornamented  with  seats,  statues, 
and  walks,  for  the  benefit  of  the  idle  crowd  that  'always  followed  the 
Court  here,  in  the  delicious  months  of  the  spring.  At  about  half 
past  nine  I  entered  this  neat  little  city,t  built  expressly  in  imitation 

of  a  Dutch  village It  was  originally  [the  Palace]  —  I  mean  in 

the  time  of  Charles  V.  —  a  mere  hunting-lodge,  and  though  the  suc- 

*  Sitio,  a  country-seat.  f  Aranjuez. 


M.  27.]  ARANJUEZ.  221; 

ceeding  princes  gradually  enlarged  it,  ....  it  remained  little  more 
than  a  fine  country-house,  until  Charles  IV.* — who  seems  to  have 
had  a  sense  for  the  beauties  of  nature,  though  he  certainly  had  it  for 
little  else  —  made  it  his  favorite  residence,  and  added  the  Casa  del 
Labrador  and  its  immense  gardens. 

The  Palace  is  an  ordinary  building,  but  full  of  pictures.  Such 
Murillos,  Velasquez,  and  Riberas  I  had  never  seen,  except  a  few  in 
the  Palace  and  Academy  at  Madrid  ;  and  I  was  delighted  to  find  that 
the  Marquis  de  Sta.  Cruz  had  marked  them  all  with  his  "  M."  for  the 
new  Royal  Gallery,  where  they  will  be,  for  the  first  time,  in  a  situa 
tion  in  which  their  merit  will  be  known  and  felt. 

What  there  is  curious  and  interesting  in  architecture,  here,  is  the 
Casa  del  Labrador,  or,  as  we  should  translate  it,  "  the  Farm-house," 
—  a  little  plaything  of  Charles  IV.,  —  standing  in  the  midst  of  a  fine 
wood,  about  half  a  mile  from  the  Palace.  It  is  the  merest  little 
jewel.  There  is  but  one  suite  of  apartments  in  it,  and  only  two  large 
saloons  ;  all  the  rest  being  divided  into  small  rooms,  cabinets,  etc., 
each  ornamented  with  beautiful  embroidered  tapestry ;  the  roofs 
painted  in  miniature  frescos,  and  the  floors  paved  in  mosaic.  Every 
thing,  in  short,  has  a  neatness  and  perfection  in  its  finish,  and  the 
whole  has  an  air  of  comfort,  and  a  preservation  of  unity  in  its  style, 
such  as  I  have  seldom  met  ;  while  in  the  richness  of  its  ornaments, 
which  are  often  of  gold  and  sometimes  of  platina,  it  is  absolutely 
unrivalled. 

The  Sitio  of  Aranjuez,  however,  is  not  to  be  so  much  considered  in 
relation  to  its  architecture  and  ornaments,  as  in  relation  to  its  natural 
situation  and  the  beauty  of  its  scenery.  It  stands  in  a  valley  formed 
by  the  Tagus,  which  winds  gracefully  through  it,  and  forms  one  large 
island  in  front  of  the  Palace,  —  where  is  the  principal  garden,  —  and 
two  waterfalls,  that  have  been  managed  by  art  so  as  to  produce  a  con 
siderable  effect.  This  is  to  be  regarded  as  merely  the  central  point  of 
the  establishment,  while  on  all  sides,  where  the  valley  opens,  fine 
groves  have  been  formed,  picturesque  alleys  and  walks  cut,  and  rural 
ornaments  distributed  for  many  miles  round  ;  so  that  as  a  park, 
or,  in  fact,  as  a  fine  country  establishment,  there  are  few,  I  suspect,  in 
Europe,  to  compare  with  it 

Aranjuez,  like  the  Escorial  and  St.  Hdefonso,  marks  its  Fasti  with 
several  famous  events,  of  which  the  most  remarkable  is  the  last.  I 
mean  the  Revolution,  which  finally  broke  out  here,  on  the  17th -18th 

*  Charles  V.,  Emperor  of  Germany,  was  Charles  I.  of  Spain.  Charles  IV. 
reigned  from  1788  to  1808. 


222  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1818. 

March,  1808,  and  the  meeting  in  October,  of  the  Central  Junta, 
which  fled  before  the  approach  of  the  French  to  Seville,  on  the  21st 
November.*  This  flight  probably  finishes  the  history  of  the  political 
importance  of  Aranjuez  ;  but  its  exquisite  scenery,  and  all  the  beau 
ties  which  nature  has  so  lavishly  poured  around  it,  and  which,  from 
the  time  of  Argensola  to  that  of  Quintana,  have  been  one  of  the 
favorite  subjects  of  Spanish  poetry,  will  remain  the  same,  whether 
cultivated  and  cherished  by  royal  favor  and  taste,  or  suffered  to  wan 
ton  in  their  native  luxuriance. 

On  the  afternoon  of  the  14th  I  left  Aranjuez,  and  came  on  to  Ocana, 
the  city  whose  name  often  occurs  in  the  ancient  Spanish  ballads,  and 

whose  architecture  still  bears  traces  of  its  Moorish  origin In 

the  evening  I  came  on  fifty-five  miles  to  Madrilejos Here  I 

had  a  singular  proof  of  Spanish  fidelity  and  hospitality.  My  license 
to  post  was  endorsed  with  a  particular  order  from  the  Ministry,  that 
the  postmasters  should  receive  me  with  attention,  and  give  me  any 
assistance  I  might  need.  The  one  at  Madrilejos  showed,  from  the 
moment  I  entered  his  house,  a  kind  of  dignified  obedience  to  this 
order,  which  struck  me  ;  and  on  his  relating  a  story  of  a  robbery,  when 
three  thousand  reals  were  taken,  and  my  reply  that,  in  a  similar  case, 
less  would  be  taken  from  me,  he  began  to  suspect  that  I  might  be  in 
want  of  money.  At  first,  therefore,  he  slightly  intimated  that  if  I 
wanted  anything,  I  might  be  sure  he  would  supply  my  needs  ;  and 
finding  I  did  not  reply  very  directly,  pressed  me  further,  —  offered 
me  money  at  once,  and  would  not  be  satisfied  until  I  proved  to  him 
that  I  was  in  no  want,  or  fear  of  it.  This  was  no  empty  offer  ;  I  am 
sure  I  might  have  commanded  that  man's  purse  and  house. 

On  the  15th  I  made  an  easy  journey  of  seventy  miles,  for  the  Post 
is  so  rapid,  and  so  little  fatiguing,  that  eight  hours  is  enough  for  it, 
and  it  can  be  done  without  real  weariness.t  ....  I  went  out  of  my 
way  a  little,  to  see  where  the  Guadiana  disappears,  —  a  phenomenon 
which  is  no  less  interesting  than  extraordinary.  The  precise  spot  is 
nowhere  so  well  marked  as  in  the  map  to  Pellicer's  Don  Quixote, 

*  Southey  gives  this  as  the  date  of  a  proclamation  issued  from  Aranjuez  by 
the  Junta,  and  describes  their  retreat  later,  without  specifying  the  day. 

t  Mr.  Ticknor  described  this  mode  of  travelling  as  pleasant ;  the  courier, 
with  the  mail,  riding  a  few  yards  before  him  ;  both  mounted  on  small  horses, 
which  were  changed  every  hour,  going  steadily  at  an  easy  gallop.  To  secure 
some  change  of  position,  during  a  journey  of  many  hours,  the  stirrups  were 
made  extremely  short  at  starting,  and  gradually  lengthened,  as  the  day  went  on. 
Mr.  Ticknor  had  his  own  saddle,  of  course,  and  carried,  attached  to  it,  a  skin 
of  wine,  and  a  haversack  with  bread,  and,  occasionally,  some  other  food. 


JE.  27.]  LA  CAROLINA.  223 

where  it  is  settled  with  great  accuracy,  on  account  of  what  Montesinos 
says  to  Durandarte,  in  the  cave.* 

The  16th,  early  in  the  morning,  I  came  through  Sta.  Cruz,  the 
splendid  fief  of  the  Marquis,  who  is  son-in-law  to  the  Duchess  of 
Ossuna,  and  soon  afterwards  came  to  the  famous  passage  of  the  Sierra 
Morena  which  divides  La  Mancha  from  Andalusia,  and  which  I  trav 
ersed,  at  the  point  where  Don  Quixote  gave  their  liberty  to  the  gal 
ley  slaves.  It  is  a  long  range  of  dark  mountains,  which  have  little 
striking  in  their  forms  ;  .  .  .  .  one  of  the  gorges  is,  however,  fine  ; 
and  the  great  number  of  eagles  with  which  it  abounds,  and  which 
sail  over  your  head  at  a  height  that  hardly  permits  you  to  hear  their 
cries,  strike  the  imagination  like  poetry,  and  announce  to  you  that 
you  are  in  one  of  the  original,  undisturbed  solitudes  of  nature 

At  the  foot  of  the  mountains  I  entered  La  Carolina,  the  chief  place 
of  a  colony  of  Germans,  brought  here  by  Charles  III.,  and  distributed 
through  about  twenty  neat  little  villages  he  here  built  for  them. 
They  are  in  a  delicious  situation,  well  built,  and  in  a  flourishing  con 
dition  ;  full  of  an  industrious  population,  that  furnishes  a  great 
quantity  of  articles  in  the  common  arts,  such  as  wooden  clocks,  coarse 
earthenware,  etc.,  etc.,  to  all  Spain.  Carolina  is  really  a  beautiful 
town,  with  fine  buildings,  spacious  walks,  and  all  the  marks  of  wealth 
and  comfort  in  the  population  ;  and  the  whole  colony,  extending  from 
the  foot  of  the  Sierra  Morena  to  near  Baylen,  forms  a  singular  con 
trast,  by  its  neatness  and  industry,  with  the  squalid  poverty  that  marks 
the  villages  of  La  Mancha  and  Castile. 

It  was  in  this  delightful  spot  that  I  first  observed  the  change  of  cli 
mate  that  might  be  expected  on  passing  so  considerable  a  chain  of 
mountains.  The  baliny  mildness  of  the  evening  air,  just  such  as  I 
had  felt  it  a  year  ago  on  descending  the  Alps  ;  the  reappearance  of 
large  groves  of  olives,  which  are  so  rare  and  meagre  in  Castile  ;  and 
the  hedges  of  aloes,  which  I  had  not  seen  since  I  left  the  coast  of 
Catalonia,  —  all  proved  that  I  had  come  into  what  may,  without  im 
propriety,  be  called  the  Italy  of  Spain. 

In  the  morning  [of  the  17th]  I  rode  along,  still  through  the  same 
delicious  country,  and  came  at  last  upon  the  banks  of  the  Guadal- 

*  The  passage  here  mentioned  is  as  follows  :  "  Your  squire,  Guadiana, 
lamenting  his  hard  fate,  was,  in  like  manner,  metamorphosed  into  a  river  that 
bears  his  name  ;  yet  still  so  sensible  of  your  disaster,  that,  when  he  first  arose 
out  of  the  bowels  of  the  earth,  to  flow  along  its  surface,  and  saw  the  sun  in  a 
strange  hemisphere,  he  plunged  again  under  ground,  striving  to  hide  his  melt 
ing  sorrows  from  the  world."  —  Don  Quixote,  Part  II.  Chap.  XXIII. 


224  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1818. 

quivir,  which  I  kept  continually  in  view,  until,  passing  the  superb 
stone  bridge  of  Alcolea,  the  turrets  and  domes  of  Cordova  appeared  in 
the  horizon  before  me.  A  half  an  hour  afterwards  I  entered  the  city, 

having  ridden,  between  four  o'clock  and  eleven,  sixty-three  miles 

The  epoch  of  the  splendor  of  Cordova  is,  of  course,  between  755  and 

1030 The  remains  of  the  luxury  and  magnificence  of  this  grand 

epoch  in  the  Moorish  annals  are  not  to  be  mistaken  at  Cordova.  The 
ruins  of  the  Palace  of  the  Kings,  where  the  Inquisition  now  stands, 
on  the  bank  of  the  Guadalquivir,  and  one  of  the  bridges,  which, 
however,  is  partly  of  Koman  architecture,  would  be  considered  very 
curious  in  any  other  part  of  the  world  ;  and,  undoubtedly,  we  should 
everywhere  find  more  distinct  and  more  magnificent  traces  of  this 
singular  people,  if  they  had  not  been  so  carefully  obliterated  by  the 
conquerors  when  they  entered,  in  the  thirteenth  century,  and  if  the 
monuments,  which  even  they  spared  and  respected,  had  not  been  over 
turned  by  a  tremendous  earthquake  in  1589. 

One,  however,  still  remains  to  us  ;  and  one,  too,  that  so  com 
pletely  fills  and  satisfies  the  imagination,  that  a  stranger  at  Cordova 
hardly  regrets  or  remembers  what  he  has  lost.  I  mean  the  Cathedral, 
still  in  the  popular  language  called  the  Mezquita,  the  grandest  of  all 
the  monuments  of  Arabic  architecture  ;  for,  between  Bagdad  and  the 
Pillars  of  Hercules,  nothing  to  be  compared  to  it  is  to  be  found.  Ab- 
derrahman  I.  began  its  construction  in  786,  and  his  two  successors 
enriched  and  finished  it.  It  is  one  of  the  largest  churches  in  the 
world,  five  hundred  and  thirty-four  feet  long  and  three  hundred  and 
eighty-seven  feet  six  inches  wide,  built  of  a  fine  stone,  and  forming 
nineteen  naves,  supported  by  eight  hundred  and  fifty  columns.  The 
coup  d'ceil,  on  entering,  is  magnificent.  Nothing  but  St.  Peter's  equals 
it ;  not  even  the  vast  Gothic  churches  of  the  North,  or  the  Cathedral 
of  Milan  ;  besides  that  it  has  the  charm  of  entire  novelty  in  its  form, 
style,  and  tone.  In  all  these  it  is  still  essentially  and  purely  Arabic. 
The  beauty  of  its  marbles,  the  curious  mixture  of  the  Eastern,  the 
Western,  and  the  Northern  styles  in  its  architecture,  —  which  has 
confounded  the  inquiries  of  the  learned  as  to  the  origin  of  the  style 
called  Gothic,  —  and  the  minute  delicacy  and  graceful  lightness  of  its 
ornaments,  combined  with  the  grand  effect  produced  by  the  whole 
imposing  mass  of  the  edifice,  whose  thousand  columns  make  you  feel 
as  if  you  were  in  the  labyrinths  of  a  forest,  altogether  render  it  not 
only  the  first  thing  of  its  kind  in  the  world,  but  one  of  the  most  curi 
ous  of  all  the  monuments  of  the  wealth  and  power  of  man 

Until  1528  it  remained  precisely  as  when  the  Moors  left  it ;  and 


M.  27.]  MOSQUE  OF  CORDOVA.  22-'5 

even  now  the  only  considerable  alteration  is  the  construction  of  a 
chapel  in  the  centre,  which,  however,  is  so  hidden  by  the  columns, 
that,  from  many  parts  of  the  church,  it  cannot  even  be  seen 

You  enter  by  the  court  and  portico,  where  the  faithful,  like  Moses, 
put  off  their  shoes  because  it  was  holy  ground.  The  very  fountains 
still  flow  there  which  flowed  for  their  ablutions  ;  and  the  orange-trees, 
the  cypresses,  and  the  palms,  which  still  form  its  refreshing  shade, 
harmonize  with  the  Eastern  associations  and  imagery  the  edifice  itself 
awakens  in  the  imagination.  On  the  inside,  you  are  continually  pass 
ing  Arabic  inscriptions  taken  from  their  holy  books  ;  you  see  the 
sanctuary  where  they  preserved  the  volumes  of  the  Coran  ;  you  enter 
the  dark  recess  where  the  doctors  met  for  the  exposition  of  the  law  ; 
and  you  sit  in  the  very  seat  where  sat  that  long  and  splendid  line  of 
proud  Moorish  kings,  from  Abderrahman  to  Hisem 

The  Mosque,  however,  as  the  popular  feeling  still  insists  on  calling 
it,  was  not  the  only  thing  that  interested  me  in  Cordova.  A  visit  that 
I  made  on  the  19th  to  the  hermits  that  live  in  the  mountains,  about 
ten  miles  from  the  city,  gave  me  a  view  of  the  human  character  on  a 
side  where  I  had  not  before  seen  it,  or,  at  least,  had  caught  only  some 
imperfect  and  indistinct  glimpses  of  it.  The  Duke  de  Rivas  and  his 
brother  Don  Angel  called  on  me  at  five  o'clock  in  the  morning  on 
horseback.  They  were  dressed  in  the  picturesque  and  ancient  costume 
of  the  country,  such  as  the  Picadores  wear  at  Madrid,*  and  which  the 
Andalusian  gentlemen  and  nobility  often  put  on,  because  it  is  really 
very  beautiful  and  rich,  and  because  it  is,  besides,  popular,  and  pro 
duces  a  good  effect  when  they  go  among  their  peasantry  and  vassals, 
whose  own  dress,  in  very  humble  forms  and  materials,  it  still  remains. 

It  was  a  beautiful  morning  ;  their  horses  and  the  one  they  brought 
for  me  were  fine  Arabians,  and  we  rode  gayly  up  the  dark  sides  of  the 
Sierra  until  nearly  eight  o'clock,  when  we  had  almost  reached  the 
summit.  There,  by  the  side  of  a  little  fountain  that  gushed  from 
the  rocks,  we  found  a  cloth  spread  on  the  ground  and  covered  with 
a  breakfast  of  cold  meats,  fruits,  and  wine,  which  the  Duke  had  sent 
up  beforehand.  In  this  romantic  spot,  under  the  shade  of  some  pome 
granate-trees,  and  with  a  magnificent  view  of  Cordova,  the  rich  plain 
that  spreads  for  fifty  miles  above  and  below  it,  and  the  Guadalquivir 
winding  through  the  whole  of  it,  we  stretched  ourselves  on  the  grass, 
and  I  made  a  breakfast  such  as  is  so  often  described  in  works  of  fic 
tion,  but  which  I  never  realized  before,  and  which  I  can  never  forget. 
When  we  had  finished,  we  walked  up  the  rest  of  the  mountain,  as  the 

*  In  the  bull-fights. 
10*  0 


226  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1818. 

passage  had  now  become  too  steep  and  difficult  for  the  horses  ;  and  on 
the  summit,  or  rather  just  below  it,  so  as  to  shelter  themselves  from 
the  north-winds  and  give  them  a  southern  aspect,  we  found  this  very- 
extraordinary  establishment. 

Its  origin  is  not  well  known.  The  hermits  pretend  that  it  has 
existed  ever  since  the  time  Christianity  came  into  Spain,  though  not 
precisely  on  the  spot  where  it  now  is  ;  but  all  that  is  certain  is, 
that  about  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago  a  nobleman  of  Cordova, 
wearied  with  the  world,  retired  to  this  solitude  and  was  soon  after 
followed  by  others,  who  were  attracted  by  his  reputation  for  sanctity 
to  imitate  the  austerity  of  his  life  and  devotions.  Their  number  was 
shortly  so  great  that  they  chose  one  to  govern  the  establishment,  and 

from  1613  they  have  regular  Fasti Thirty-four  that  now  live  there 

are  shut  up,  each  in  his  little  cell,  which  stands  separate  from  all  the 
others.  They  never  speak  together  but  on  especial  occasions,  with 
leave  of  their  head  ;  they  never  see  each  other  but  at  mass,  once  a 
day ;  never  sleep  on  anything  but  boards  ;  never  eat  anything  but 
vegetables  nor  drink  anything  but  water,  and  refuse  all  alms  in  money 
or  in  anything  else  that  does  not  serve  as  the  immediate  means  of 
subsistence.  They  have  a  little  church,  plain  and  simple,  where  the 
Elder  Brother  —  Hermano  Mayor,  as  he  is  called  —  lives  ;  and  the  lit 
tle  cabins  of  each  of  the  hermits,  though  not  squalid  or  miserable,  are 
small,  and  absolutely  destitute  of  everything  that  can  be  called  either 

the  comforts  or  the  conveniences  of  life Over  the  door  is  the  skull 

of  one  of  its  former  tenants,  and  within,  before  the  crucifix,  there  is 
commonly  another.  Nine  times  a  day  they  perform  their  devotions, 
at  a  signal  given  from  the  church,  which  is  answered  by  a  bell  from 
each  cell ;  and  if  there  be  any  faith  in  wan  and  suffering  countenances, 
the  bloody  thongs  I  saw,  hanging  up  before  their  humble  altars,  are 
but  the  proofs  of  the  cruel  severity  of  their  secret  mortifications. 

With  all  this,  they  are  of  no  religious  order,  have  made  no  profes 
sion  and  taken  no  vow,  and  can  go  from  their  hermitage  as  freely  as 
they  came  to  it  ;  and  yet,  such  secret  charms  has  this  life,  that  there 
is  no  instance  remembered,  or  on  record,  of  any  one  who  has  returned 
to  the  world.  Neither  have  they  been  men  who  came  here  from  the 
lowest  classes  of  society,  ignorant  of  the  pleasures  of  this  world,  for 
there  is  hardly  a  noble  family  in  Cordova  that  has  not  furnished  more 
than  one  hermit.  There  are  four  or  five  such  there  now,  besides 
one  that  has  been  a  colonel  in  the  army,  another  that  commanded 
a  frigate,  and  fought  bravely  at  Trafalgar.  ....  The  Elder  Brother 
himself,  who  has  been  there  twenty-six  years,  might,  if  he  would 


.E.  27.]  ANDALUSIA.  227 

return  to  his  family,  claim  a  title  and  fortune  ;  but  these  things  have 
lost  all  charms  for  him.  Yet  a  more  benevolent  countenance  and 
manners,  or  more  unaffected  kindness,  I  have  rarely  seen.  He  in 
quired  of  the  Duke  very  minutely  about  his  friends  and  relations, 
told  him  many  anecdotes  of  their  youth,  and  but  for  the  solitude  of  his 
cell,  his  sackcloth,  and  his  flowing  beard,  it  would  have  been  difficult 
to  say  he  was  anything  but  a  well-bred  gentleman,  a  little  touched, 
indeed,  in  the  tones  of  his  voice  and  in  the  forms  of  his  expressions, 
by  the  softening  and  humbling  hand  of  adversity  and  suffering,  but 
still  preserving  the  unpretending  and  natural  dignity  of  his  character 
and  the  ease  and  grace  of  his  manners.  He  carried  us  through  the 
whole  establishment,  and  suffered  the  brothers  to  talk  to  us.  Some 
did  it  willingly  and  even  gayly,  others  with  reluctance  and  in  mono 
syllables  only It  was  altogether  one  of  the  most  extraordinary 

and  interesting  spectacles  I  have  seen  in  Europe,  and  ....  left  an 
impression  on  my  feelings  and  fancy  that  can  never  pass  away 

I  remained  in  Cordova  in  all  two  days  and  a  half,  and  was  not  a 
little  amused  with  what  I  saw  of  the  people  and  society  there.  It  is 
altogether  different  from  what  I  had  seen  in  Madrid.  The  Castilians 
are  gay  in  their  own  private  circles  ;  the  Andalusians  are  gay  always 
and  everywhere,  and  they  have  an  open-heartedness  towards  stran 
gers  which,  if  it  be  not  a  more  efficient  hospitality  than  you  meet  at 
the  North,  is  much  more  fascinating.  The  nobility  is  rich,  and  gen 
erally  agricultural,  fond  of  a  country  life  and  country  amusements, 
great  hunters,  bull-baiters,  and  Picadores  ;  and,  above  all,  proud  of 
having  fine  horses  and  cattle.  It  is  in  these  rich  plains  that  I  first 
realized  the  truth  of  Roxas'  description  of  Castanar's  wealth  and  the 
nature  of  his  incomes,  for  I  was  often  shown  estates  where  were  kept 
from  three  to  five  hundred  horses,  a  thousand  cattle,  etc.,  etc.,  for  these 
are  the  strength  and  resources  of  the  country.*  Each  evening  I  spent 
at  the  Marquis  de  Villaseca's,  the  richest  man  in  Cordova,  and  the 
pleasantest  house  there,  as  I  was  told  in  Madrid.  Few  people  go 
there,  but  those  that  do,  go  familiarly  and  intimately  ;  and,  to  me  at 
least,  the  society  was  interesting  and  amusing.  The  Marquis  himself 
is  a  young  man,  with  ninety  thousand  dollars  a  year,  easy,  good- 
natured,  kind-hearted,  hospitable,  and  ignorant  ;  with  a  house  full 
of  old  domestics,  whose  ancestors  have  been  in  his  family  —  as  is  the 
custom  here  —  from  untold  generations,  and  who  therefore  treat  him 
with  great  respect,  to  be  sure,  but  still  great  familiarity 

The  Duke  de  Rivas  is  a  true  Andalusian  nobleman,  loving  hunting 

*  Allusion  to  a  play  by  Francisco  de  Roxas,  called  Del  Key  abaxo  Ninguno. 


228  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1818. 

and  horses,  delighted  with  living  among  his  own  vassals,  and  promot 
ing  good  agriculture  ;  a  brave  and  successful  soldier,  and  a  dexterous 
Picador.  Don  Angel,  whom  he  loves,  I  am  told,  affectionately,  is  cer 
tainly  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  young  men  I  have  met  in  Spain.* 
He  has  a  fine  person,  a  beautiful  face,  full  of  genius,  has  written  sev 
eral  plays  that  have  been  well  received  in  the  Spanish  theatres,  painted 
a  large  piece  that  made  much  noise  in  the  last  exhibition  at  Madrid  ; 
is  as  brave  as  Caesar,  since  he  has  eleven  severe  wounds  in  his  body 
received  from  the  French  ;  and,  with  all  this,  is  very  modest,  simple, 
and  elegant  in  his  manners,  and  a  pure  Andalusian  in  the  gayety  of 
his  temper,  his  horsemanship,  and  his  love  of  bull-fights  and  dexterity 
as  a  Picador.  I  really  passed  my  evenings  very  happily  with  them. 
The  amusements  were  dancing,  singing,  etc.,  and  the  evening  before 
I  came  away,  they  danced  their  national  dances  in  the  national  cos 
tumes,  to  gratify  my  curiosity,  so  that  I  stayed  until  almost  morning, 
as  much  as  if  I  had  been  an  Andalusian 

On  the  20th,  very  early  in  the  morning,  I  left  Cordova,  and  returned 
upon  my  steps  as  far  as  Andujar,  where  I  dined.  There  I  turned  oft', 
and  plunging  at  once  into  the  mountains,  continued  travelling  through 
a  broken  and  picturesque  country,  where,  though  there  was  only  a 
road  for  horses,  I  often  met  considerable  towns,  and  almost  always 
with  some  strong  Moorish  fortification  near  them,  until  four  o'clock 
on  the  morning  of  the  22d,  when,  after  having  ridden  twenty-four 
hours  successively  with  the  mail-post,  for  safety,  I  entered  Granada 

After  resting  myself  a  little,  I  went  to  the  palace  of  the  Archbishop, 
and  presented  my  letter  from  the  Nuncio.  The  Archbishop  is  an  old 
man  of  nearly  seventy,  but  so  well  preserved  that  he  does  not  look 
like  fifty-five,  plain  in  his  manners  and  almost  rude,  and  with  a  strong 
air  of  genuine  ecclesiastical  decision  and  authority  in  all  he  does 
and  says.  After  talking  with  him  a  few  minutes,  he  took  me  by  the 
coat,  and  carrying  me  into  a  large  suite  of  apartments,  gave  me  the 
key,  and  said,  "  There,  sir,  these  rooms  are  yours,  and  this  servant 
is  at  nobody's  orders  but  yours  as  long  as  you  are  in  Granada  ;  but 
you  will  make  use  of  them  or  not,  just  as  you  please,  for  I  never  shall 
inquire.  Moreover,  I  dine  at  two  o'clock  every  day,  and  you  will  always 

*  Don  Angel  afterwards  became  Duke  de  Rivas.  He  was  always  affection 
ately  remembered  by  Mr.  Ticknor  and  some  interchange  of  books  and  letters 
occurred  between  them  in  later  years.  In  the  Preface  to  the  first  edition  of  the 
"  History  of  Spanish  Literature,"  this  Duke  de  Rivas  is  spoken  of  as  one  "  who, 
like  the  old  nobles  of  the  proudest  days  of  the  monarchy,  has  distinguished 
himself  alike  in  arms,  in  letters,  and  in  the  civil  government  and  foreign  diplo 
macy  of  his  country." 


M.  27.]  GRANADA.  ,229 

liave  a  plate  on  my  table  ;  but  if  you  don't  come  I  shall  not  complain 
of  it,  for  I  mean  you  should  do  exactly  as  you  please."  It  was  cer 
tainly  the  most  rudely  and  heartily  hospitable  reception  that  could 
be,  given  to  a  stranger,  and  his  conduct  afterwards  showed  that  it  was 
all  to  be  taken  literally  and  in  earnest,  for  there  was  nothing  he  did 
not  do  for  me  during  the  two  days  I  was  in  Granada, 

One  great  source  of  my  amusement  in  his  palace  was  the  comic 
recollections  of  Gil  Bias,  his  ill-timed  fidelity,  and  its  ungrateful 
reward  ;  and  often,  when  I  was  talking  with  the  Archbishop,  and  the 
thought  of  the  irresistibly  droll  scenes  that  Le  Sage  has  placed  here 
came  into  my  mind,  I  could  hardly  prevent  myself  from  laughing 
aloud.  The  parallel,  however,  certainly  does  not  hold  very  strictly 
in  the  present  incumbent.  He  is  undoubtedly  a  good  man,  as  every 
body  says  ;  he  gives  away  nearly  all  his  ecclesiastical  incomes  to  the 
poor ;  three  hundred  are  fed  at  his  door  every  day,  as  I  have  seen  ; 
he  supports  two  charity  schools  in  every  town  of  his  archbishopric  ; 
educates  all  the  foundlings,  etc.,  etc.,  and  lives  liberally  and  hospita 
bly  on  his  private  fortunes,  consecrating  to  religion  all  he  receives 
from  it.  But  he  is  not  a  man  to  write  homilies  ;  and,  indeed,  with 
strong  masculine  sense,  and  even  a  bold,  original  style  of  thought  and 
talk,  he  is  one  of  the  most  grossly  superstitious  and  ignorant  men  I 
ever  met ;  and  his  chief  favorite,  instead  of  being  a  shrewd,  original, 
practical  fellow,  like  Gil  Bias,  is  a  humble,  insinuating  little  priest 
without  talent  or  culture.  I  recollect  that  in  giving  me  an  account 
of  an  irreligious  man,  he  said,  "  He  believes  neither  in  God,  Christ, 
nor  even  the  Virgin  "  ;  and  in  describing  a  library  he  has  at  Xerez,  he 
.said,  that  among  the  MSS.  there  were  autographs  of  every  one  of  the 
apostles  and  prophets,  most  of  which  had  wrought  and  still  work 
miracles.*.  .  .  . 

The  Cathedral  is  not  very  extraordinary,  though  still  a  fine  church, 
and  remarked  chiefly  for  an  admirable  dome  supported  by  twelve 
arches.  It  was  begun  by  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  chiefly  built  by 
Charles  V.,  and  finished  by  Philip  II.,  but  was  interesting  to  me 
only  for  a  few  good  pictures,  and  for  the  Chapel  of  the  Kings,  where 
are  deposited  the  bodies  of  Ferdinand  and  Isabella 

The  Convent  of  the  Carthusians  is  also  due  to  the  Catholic  kings, 

*  In  conversation,  Mr.  Ticknor  described  the  Archbishop  at  his  breakfast, 
chatting  freely  on  all  subjects,  while  the  little  chaplain  knelt  by  his  side  on  a 
hassock,  fluently  reciting  the  prayers  from  the  breviary,  and  His  Reverence 
always  responding  at  the  proper  moment  with  scarcely  an  interruption  of  his 
talk. 


230  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1818. 

and  is,  after  the  Escorial,  the  finest  I  ever  saw  for  its  architecture, 
extent,  and  magnificence.  Yet  no  monks  except  the  order  of  La 
Trappe  live  so  severely.  They  never  eat  meat,  and  only  once  in  a 
week  speak  together.  They  live  shut  up  in  their  cells  the  rest  of  the 
time,  and  if,  from  any  accident,  they  meet,  they  stop  an  instant,  cross 
themselves,  and  one  says,  instead  of  all  other  salutation,  "  Brother,  we 
must  die  "  ;  to  which  the  only  answer  is,  "  Brother,  I  know  it  "  ;  after 
which  they  cross  themselves  again  and  pass  on.  By  order  of  the  Arch 
bishop,  I  was  permitted  to  see  their  manner  of  life,  their  cells,  etc.  ; 
and  their  austerities  made  me  shudder.  I  would  rather  have  been 
with  the  hermits  of  Cordova,  where  at  least  I  should  have  had  a  beau 
tiful  and  smiling  nature  always  before  me,  than  in  the  dreary,  dark, 

cheerless  solitude  of  this  magnificent  convent 

Granada  was  originally  divided  into  four  quarters,  which  still  ex 
ist  and  are  easily  to  be  traced.  Three  were  given  to  the  people,  but 
the  fourth,  the  famous  Alhambra,  was  reserved  for  the  Court,  and  is 
still  everywhere  covered  with  bold,  striking  ruins  of  the  peculiar  style 
of  Moorish  luxury.  It  is  a  considerable  hill,  at  whose  base  flow  the 
waters  of  the  Douro  and  Xenil,  and  beyond  which  lie  the  city,  the  de 
licious  plain  of  Granada,  dotted  everywhere  with  convents  and  villages, 
and  the  dark  mountains  of  the  Sierra  Nevada.  On  this  hill  —  which 
was  once  strongly  walled  and  fortified  as  a  kind  of  citadel  —  stood  the 
palaces  and  gardens  of  the  Moorish  kings,  and  around  it  were  scattered 
the  establishments  of  the  Court  and  nobility,  so  that  the  whole  Alham 
bra,  with  its  guards,  consisted  of  a  population  of  forty  thousand  souls. 
The  ruins  that  remain  are  worthy  monuments  of  the  glory  and  splen 
dor  that  once  inhabited  them.  You  go  up  by  a  fine  elm  walk  and 
enter  the  Gate  of  Judgment,  where  the  Moorish  kings  sat  in  the  patri 
archal  manner  of  the  East  to  administer  justice  to  all  who  came  to 
ask  it.  You  pass  through  the  immense  halls  of  their  palaces,  through 
their  bathing-apartments,  through  the  queen's  toilet-room  and  the 
room  where  she  perfumed  herself,  through  the  magnificent  saloon  of 
the  ambassadors,  through  the  beautiful  recesses  of  the  women's  apart 
ment,  and  amidst  the  exquisite  beauties  and  refreshing  shades  and 
fountains  of  the  hanging  gardens  of  the  Generalife.  All  this  is  in  the 
light,  gay,  luxurious  style  of  the  Arabian  architecture,  which  so  singu 
larly  marks  the  peculiar  characters  of  their  genius  and  imagination, 
and  is  so  different  from  the  severe  purity  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  taste 
and  the  gloomy  grandeur  of  the  spirit  of  the  North.  The  different 
degrees,  too,  in  which  all  this  is  preserved  or  ruined,  add  much  to  the 
general  effect  of  the  whole. 


M.  27.]  ALHAMBRA.  231 

Here  you  pass  under  superb  rows  of  oaks  and  elms,  whose  size  and 
regularity  prove  to  you  that  they  are  the  same  where  those  proud 
kings  walked  who  claimed  to  themselves  the  titles  of  emperor  and 
sultan  ;  and  a  little  farther  on,  you  find  yourself  in  a  thicket  as  wild 
as  the  original  fastnesses  of  nature.  Sometimes  you  meet  with  a  foun 
tain  that  still  flows  as  it  did  when  tales  of  Arabian  nights  were  told 
on  its  borders,  and  sometimes  you  find  the  waters  burst  from  their 
aqueducts  and  bubbling  over  the  ruins  of  the  palaces  or  pouring  in 
cascades  from  the  summit  of  the  crumbling  fortifications.  Sometimes 
the  architecture  is  preserved,  even  to  the  very  minutest  of  its  most 
delicate  ornaments,  as  in  the  queen's  toilet,  the  luxurious  bathing- 
rooms,  and  the  saloon  of  the  ambassadors,  and  sometimes  it  has  been 
broken  by  earthquakes  into  grand  masses  of  picturesque  ruins  covered 
with  the  graceful  drapery  of  the  ivy  and  the  vine  ;  while,  for  a  vast 
distance  around,  the  remains  of  immense  gardens  are  apparent  in  the 
garden  flowers  that  still  grow  wild  there,  in  the  pomegranate  and  palm 
trees  that  spring  up  in  every  thicket,  and  in  the  profusion  of  waters 
that  were  the  peculiar  and  characteristic  luxury  of  the  Arabs,  and 
which  still,  brought  by  their  aqueducts  from  the  neighboring  moun 
tains,  are  everywhere  seen  winding  down  the  sides  of  the  hill  and 
hastening  to  join  the  Xenil  and  the  Douro  in  the  fertile  plain  below. 

I  wandered  here  for  hours,  meeting  at  every  instant  something  to 
delight  and  surprise  me,  resting  under  the  shade  of  a  palm-tree,  sitting 
amidst  the  refreshing  coolness  of  the  minute  fountains  the  Arabs 
invented  only  to  temper  the  heat,  or  enjoying  the  magnificent  view 
from  the  summit  of  the  Generalife,  which,  taking  in  the  plain  below, 
traversed  by  four  streams  and  bounded  by  mountains,  is  more  like  an 
original  to  Milton's  description  of  Paradise  than  the  Val  d'  Arno,  or 
anything  else  I  have  seen  in  Europe.  At  length,  the  sun  set  upon 
my  unsatisfied  eagerness,  and  the  twilight  began  to  fade  below.  I 
came  down  slowly  and  reluctantly  ;  returned  to  the  Archbishop's  and 
talked  it  all  over  with  him  ;  went  to  bed  and  dreamt  of  it,  and  the 
next  morning,  at  half  past  five  o'clock,  was  again  on  the  summit  of 
the  Generalife,  with  my  eyes  again  fastened  on  the  same  enchanting 
scenery  and  prospect.  The  morning  was  as  beautiful  as  the  evening 
had  been.  The  plain  became  gradually  illuminated,  and  the  moun 
tains  beyond  passed  from  gray  to  purple,  and  from  purple  to  gold,  as 
I  gazed  upon  them.  The  birds  were  everywhere  rejoicing  at  the 
return  of  day,  in  the  groves  and  gardens  of  the  Alhambra,  as  gayly 
as  if  it  were  still  the  chosen  seat  of  Arabian  luxury  ;  and  the  convents 
in  the  city  and  its  environs  were  just  ringing  their  matins.  In  the 


232  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1818. 

nearest  I  could  occasionally  catch  the  tones  of  the  organ  and  the 
choir,  while  from  the  most  remote  the  tolling  of  the  bell  had  almost 
died  away  before  it  reached  me  in  the  intervals  of  the  morning  breeze. 
All  was  in  harmony,  —  the  hour,  the  season,  and  the  scene  ;  and  when 
the  sun  rose,  it  rose  on  one  of  the  most  splendid  and  glorious  prospects 
in  the  world.* 

The  old  Archbishop  was  delighted  at  breakfast-time  to  find  I  had 
been  again  at  the  Alhambra,  for  in  his  veneration  for  this  wonderful 
ruin  he  is  little  better  than  a  Mahometan.  He  sent  me  out,  however, 
directly  afterwards,  with  his  rude  kind  of  hospitality,  to  see  the  city 
itself.  It  is  a  good  city,  like  any  other,  with  a  few  fine  houses  belong 
ing  to  the  nobility  ;  but  what  most  struck  me  was  the  Moorish  char 
acter  so  often  apparent.  I  first  noticed  it  in  the  curious  form,  arrange 
ment,  and  splendor  of  the  silk  market,  which  is  substantially  as  it  was 
in  the  fifteenth  century  ;  afterwards  in  the  more  showy  and  rich  dresses 
of  the  people,  in  the  paintings  on  the  outside  of  their  houses,  or  in  the 
minute  and  delicate  ornaments  of  their  architecture,  and  in  the  awn 
ings  over  their  courts,  in  their  verandas,  and  in  the  profusion  of  waters 
distributed  through  their  houses,  so  that  they  sometimes  have  a  jet 
d'eau  in  every  room.  The  last  thing  in  which  I  noticed  it  was  in 
their  language,  as  in  their  salutation,  "  Dios  guarde  a  vin,"  and  in 
their  accent,  which  makes  an  h  guttural,  as  in  AlAanibra,  AlAama, 
Aarto,  etc.,  all  which  are  completely  Moorish  ;  as  well  as  a  general 
tone  perceptible  in  the  ways  and  dress  of  the  common  people. 

At  dinner,  the  Archbishop  had  invited  a  good  many  persons  to  meet 
me,  and  thus  made  the  last  hours  of  my  visit  to  Granada  pleasant,  for 
I  was  obliged  to  go  away  this  very  evening  (September  25).  I  would 
have  stayed  until  the  morning,  though  only  to  rest  myself,  but  the 
"Corzarios,"  or  company  that  trades  between  Granada  and  Malaga, 
set  off  at  five  o'clock,  and  the  roads  are  so  infested  with  robbers  that 
no  other  mode  of  travelling  is  safe.  We  commenced  our  march,  there 
fore,  about  thirty  strong,  with  about  an  hundred  mules  of  burden  and 

*  In  a  letter  to  Mr.  Daveis,  December  5,  1818,  Mr.  Ticknor  says  :  "The 
Alhambra,  a  name  which  will  make  my  blood  thrill  if  I  live  to  the  frosts  of  a 
century,  not  that  the  pleasure  I  received,  on  wandering  over  the  immense  extent 
of  these  most  graceful  and  most  picturesque  of  all  ruins,  was  like  the  quiet,  hal 
lowed  delight  of  a  solitary,  secret  visit  to  the  Coliseum  or  the  Fonim,  when  the 
moonbeams  slept  upon  the  wrecks  of  three  empires  and  twenty-five  hundred 
years,  for  it  was  nothing  of  all  this  ;  but  it  was  a  riotous,  tumultuous  pleasure, 
which  will  remain  in  my  memory,  like  a  kind  of  sensual  enjoyment,  as  long  as 
it  has  vivacity  enough  to  recall  the  two  days  I  passed  amidst  this  strange 
enchantment." 


JE.  27.]  MALAGA.  233 

six  persons  like  myself,  who  travelled  with  them  for  a  protection  the 
government  does  not  pretend  to  give.  The  only  one  that  interested 
me  was  Count  Polentinos,  whom  I  had  known  at  the  Archbishop's,  a 
young  man  of  some  knowledge  in  physical  science,  that  is,  for  a 
Spanish  nobleman.  He  is  of  Madrid,  and  had  been  at  Granada  for 
a  lawsuit,  which  has  been  pending  in  the  Spanish  courts  two  hundred 
and  eleven  years,  and  which,  though  he  confidently  believes  he  has 
gained  and  terminated  it,  is  yet  not  so  completely  closed  that  his 
adversary  cannot  disturb  him  with  one  more  appeal.  This  is  a  speci 
men  of  Spanish  justice,  and  the  Count  related  to  me  several  similar 
instances  of  promptitude  in  its  administration,  not  less  characteristic. 
We  entered  at  once  into  the  mountains  that  surround  Granada  on  this 
side  as  on  all  others,  and  came  on  that  night  to  Alhama  to  sleep.  The 
next  day  we  continued  several  leagues  farther  in  the  same  kind  of 
country,  sometimes  even  in  regions  refreshed  by  the  eternal  snows 
that  rested  on  the  chain  above  us,  and  often  through  a  very  rude,  pic 
turesque  scenery,  marked  by  the  remains  of  Moorish  castles  and  forti 
fications.  As  we  approached  Velez  Malaga,  however,  all  this  gradually 
changed.  The  heats  came  upon  us  most  oppressively  in  the  valleys  ; 
the  peasants  were  all  out,  drying  and  packing  their  Muscadel  raisins 
for  our  market  and  the  English  ;  the  road  was  lined  with  aloes,  which 
I  now  for  the  first  time  saw,  shooting  up  their  immense  blossoms 
to  the  height  of  thirty  feet,  and  looking  at  a  distance  like  young  pines. 
The  palm-trees,  dates,  and  pomegranates  grew  more  frequent  ;  and  at 
last  we  came  to  what  I  had  so  often  heard  talked  of,  and  what  proved 
to  me  completely  that  I  was  now  in  a  tropical  climate,  I  mean  a  regu 
lar  plantation  of  the  sugar-cane 

[On  the  27th],  at  nine  o'clock,  I  gladly  entered  the  busy  little  city 

of  Malaga The  inhabitants  —  I  mean  those  I  knew  in  a  visit  of 

only  three  days —  I  found  hospitable  as  the  spirit  of  commei'ce  always 
makes  a  people,  and  frank,  open,  and  giddy,  as  everybody  knows  the 
Andalusians  are.  Count  Cabarrus  and  his  family,  and  the  house  of 
Mr.  Rouse  would  have  done  anything  for  me,  and,  in  fact,  did  much  ; 
but  Count  Teba  and  the  Bishop,  who  interested  me  and  amused  me 
much  more,  made  it  quite  unnecessary. 

I  knew  Mad.  de  Teba  in  Madrid,  when  she  was  there  on  a  visit 
last  summer  ;  and  from  what  I  saw  of  her  then,  and  here  where  I  saw 
her  every  day,  I  do  not  doubt  she  is  the  most  cultivated  and  the 
most  interesting  woman  ia  Spain.  Young  and  beautiful,  educated 
strictly  and  faithfully  by  her  mother,  a  Scotchwoman,  —  who,  for  this 
purpose,  carried  her  to  London  and  Paris,  and  kept  her  there  between 


234  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1818. 

six  and  seven  years,  —  possessing  extraordinary  talents,  and  giving  an 
air  of  originality  to  all  she  says  and  does,  she  unites,  in  a  most  be 
witching  manner,  the  Andalusian  grace  and  frankness  to  a  French 
facility  in  her  manners,  and  a  genuine  English  thoroughness  in  her 
knowledge  and  accomplishments.  She  knows  the  five  chief  modern 
languages  well,  and  feels  their  different  characters,  and  estimates  their 
literatures  aright  ;  she  has  the  foreign  accomplishments  of  singing, 
playing,  painting,  etc.,  and  the  national  one  of  dancing,  in  a  high  de 
gree.  In  conversation  she  is  brilliant  and  original ;  and  yet,  with  all 
this,  she  is  a  true  Spaniard,  and  as  full  of  Spanish  feelings  as  she  is 
of  talent  and  culture.  One  night  I  saw  her  play,  in  the  house  of  one 
of  her  friends,  before  about  fifty  people,  the  chief  part  in  Quintana's 
tragedy  of  Pelayo.  The  whole  exhibition  of  the  evening  was  inter 
esting,  and  especially  so  to  me,  for  it  was  got  up  in  the  true  old  Span 
ish  style,  first  with  a  Loa  to  the  governor,  then  the  tragedy,  then  an 
Entremes  ;  afterwards  a  Tonadilla  in  national  costume,  followed  by 
the  Bolero  ;  and,  finally,  a  Saynete.  But  it  was  the  Countess  de  Teba 
—  who  played  her  part  like  a  Corinne,  and,  who,  in  fact,  has  more  re 
minded  me  of  Corinne  than  any  woman  I  have  seen  —  that  carried  off 
every  movement  of  approbation.*  It  was  after  all  this  gayety  that  I 
very  sadly  bade  her  farewell  forever,  and  a  couple  of  hours  afterwards, 
at  four  o'clock  in  the  morning,  mounted  my  horse  for  Gibraltar. 

The  Bishop  [of  Malaga]  ....  is  about  fifty  years  old,  possessed  of 
uncommon  talents  and  eloquence,  dignified,  and  a  little  formal  in  his 
manners,  and  cautious,  adroit,  and  powerful  in  conversation.  When 
he  was  canon  at  Toledo,  he  was  a  representative  in  the  Cortes  and 
much  remarked  for  his  eloquence,  where  there  were  certainly  no  com 
mon  competitors,  and,  what  does  him  yet  more  honor,  he  was  one  of 
the  three  chosen  to  draw  up  the  famous  free  constitution,  and  is  con 
sidered  as  its  chief  author.  This  is  the  bright  side  of  his  character. 
Now  reverse  the  medal,  and  he  is  cunning,  obsequious  to  his  superiors 

*  Thirty  years  after  this,  M.  de  Puibusque,  author  of  "L'Histoire  comparee 
des  Litteratures  Francaise  et  Espagnole,"  being  in  Boston  and  much  with  Mr. 
Ticknor,  spoke  with  great  admiration  of  the  Countess  de  Montijo,  describing  the 
brilliancy  of  her  talent,  and  the  variety  of  her  culture  and  accomplishments. 
Mr.  Ticknor  said  he  had  known  but  one  lady  in  Spain  to  whom  such  a  descrip 
tion  could  apply,  and  had  believed  her  to  be  the  only  one  ;  but  she  was  Coun 
tess  de  Teba.  M.  de  Puibusque  explained  that  it  was  the  same  person,  under  a 
title  later  inherited.  Mr.  Ticknor  mentioned  this  in  a  letter  to  Don  Pascual  de 
Gayangos  (August  20,  1849),  and  sent  a  message  to  Mad.  de  Montijo,  who 
recollected  him  and  returned  his  greeting.  The  Empress  Eugenie  is  her  daugh 
ter. 


JE.  27.]  GIBRALTAR.      ,  235 

and  hard  to  his  dependents,  loving  all  kinds  of  splendor,  and  a  glut 
ton.  As  I  brought  an  especial  letter  to  him  from  the  Nuncio,  he  made 
a  great  dinner  for  me,  to  which  he  invited  the  Governor,  the  Captain 
of  the  Port,  Count  Teba,  and  all  the  persons  he  was  aware  I  knew, 
several  of  the  nobility  of  the  city,  etc.,  in  all  about  forty  persons.  His 
cook  made  good  the  boast  it  is  said  he  ventured,  when  the  Bishop  re 
ceived  him,  "that  the  king  should  not  dine  so  well  as  the  Bishop  of 
Malaga,"  for  such  a  luxurious  dinner  I  have  rarely  beheld,  and  never 
one  so  elaborate.  The  bread,  as  he  told  me  himself,  came  from  five- 
and-twenty  miles  off,  because  the  baker  is  better  ;  all  the  water  is 
brought  on  mules  fifty  miles,  from  a  fountain  that  has  the  reputation 
of  stimulating  the  appetite  and  promoting  digestion  ;  he  had  meats 
on  the  table  from  every  part  of  Spain,  pastry  from  Holland,  and  wines 
from  all  over  Europe.  In  short,  taking  his  eloquence,  his  culture,  and 
his  dinner  together,  he  is  as  near  the  original  of  Gil  Bias'  Bishop  of 
Granada  as  a  priest  of  the  nineteenth  century  need  be  ;  and  if  he  should 
ever  come  to  the  archbishopric,  which  is  probable,  nothing  will  be 
wanting  but  the  shrewd,  practical  secretary,  to  complete  the  group 
which  Le  Sage  has  so  admirably  drawn. 

My  journey  to  Gibraltar  was  bad.  The  first  day  it  rained  the  whole 
time,  so  that  I  was  wet  through  to  the  skin,  and  yet  was  able  to  ad 
vance  no  farther  than  Marbella,  where  I  was  received  by  the  hostess 
of  the  poor  little  inn  with  a  genuine,  faithful  kindness  I  can  never 
forget.  This  is  generally  the  case  in  Spain.  If  you  really  want 
assistance,  if  you  are  really  suffering,  you  are  sure  to  meet  nothing 
but  good -will.  In  Gibraltar  I  remained  from  the  morning  of  the 
30th  September  to  noon  on  the  3d  of  October,  and  passed  my  time 
pleasantly,  except  that  it  made  me  not  a  little  homesick  to  find  so 
many  countrymen  there,  to  hear  English  everywhere  talked,  and  to 
look  forth  from  the  summit  of  the  rock  upon  the  Atlantic,  which  I 
had  not  seen  for  above  three  years,  and  which  seems  but  a  slight  sepa 
ration  between  me  and  my  home 

The  governor,  General  Don,*  to  whom  I  had  letters,  was  very  kind 
to  me  and  sent  me  through  all  the  fortifications,  ....  and  gave  me  for 
my  guide  an  officer  who  explained  it  all  to  me,  without  which  I  should 
hardly  have  been  wiser  than  before  I  went.  As  I  passed  along  from  one 
battery  to  another,  until  I  had  seen  eleven  hundred  cannon  that  could 
be  manned  in  fifteen  minutes,  it  seemed  to  me  as  if  it  were  a  luxury 
and  waste  of  fortification  ;  as  if  it  could  be  defended  against  all  the 

*  Later,  General  Sir  George  Don,  G.  C.  B.  The  name  always  puzzled  the 
Spaniards,  who  asked,  "  Don  what  ? " 


236  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1818. 

world  with  half  the  present  means,  as  in  fact  it  was  in  1705,  1728, 
and  1782,  when  half  the  means  did  not  exist ;  and  as  I  went  through 
the  famous  galleries,  it  seemed  to  me  almost  as  if  men  were  useless 
there,  and  as  if  the  Kock  could  defend  itself.  ....  The  town  is  very 
pleasant,  for  English  industry  and  wealth  have  made  it  so  in  defiance 
of  nature.  I  have  seen  few  towns  of  the  same  size  more  neat  or  more 
comfortable,  and,  what  is  yet  more  extraordinary,  still  fewer  that 
have  so  many  or  so  fine  gardens.  Indeed,  a  genuine  horticulture  has 
been  carried  so  far  under  the  present  excellent  governor,  that,  instead 
of  depending  on  the  neighboring  villages,  Gibraltar  exports  to  them 
different  kinds  of  vegetables  through  the  whole  year.  Notwithstand 
ing  this,  however,  everything  has,  as  it  ought  to  have,  a  military  char 
acter  and  tone.  The  houses  are  painted  dark,  so  as  to  mask  them  from 
an  enemy  ;  the  walks  are  esplanades  and  batteries  ;  the  squares  made 
for  reviews  ;  and  even  the  hospitable  dinner-table  of  the  governor  is 
made  of  planks  from  one  of  the  bomb-ships  engaged  in  the  siege  of 
1782,  and  the  candlesticks  in  his  drawing-room  are  made  of  some  of 
the  brass  ordnance  of  the  famous  floating  batteries 

The  road  from  Gibraltar  to  Cadiz  is  dreary,  passing  almost  always 
through  a  good  soil,  but  one  much  neglected,  unpeopled,  and  uncul 
tivated 

I  remained  [at  Cadiz]  two  days,  but  saw  no  one  monument  of  archi 
tecture,  other  than  military,  to  attract  my  notice  ;  almost  nothing  in 
painting,  for  the  few  collections  there  were  are  scattered,  and  nothing 
in  letters,  except  the  fine  Spanish  library  of  the  Hanseatic  Consul,  Bohl 
von  Faber.*  The  few  persons  I  knew,  especially  the  women,  an 
swered  well  to  the  character  for  grace,  lightness,  and  gayety  they  have 
had,  from  the  time  of  Martial  to  that  of  Lord  Byron  ;  but,  as  all  have 
admitted,  there  are  few  people  here  that  attract  a  solid  esteem  for 
their  cultivation 

*  In  a  note  to  the  "  History  of  Spanish  Literature,"  Mr.  Ticknor  says  :  "  Few 
foreigners  have  done  so  much  for  Spanish  literature  as  Bohl  von  Faber,"  and 
mentions  his  daughter  as  "  one  of  the  most  popular  of  the  living  writers  of 
Spain,"  her  novelas  appearing  under  the  pseudonyme  of  Fernan  Caballero. 


JE.  27.]  SEVILLE. 


CHAPTER    XII. 

Seville.  —  Cathedral.  —  Spanish  School  of  Painting.  —  Sir  John  Downie. 
—  Journey  to  Lisbon  with  Contrabandists.  —  Cintra.  —  Portuguese 
Society. 

JOURNAL. 

ON  the  8th  of  October  I  embarked  in  the  steamboat  that  plies  on 
the  river  as  far  as  Seville  ;  and,  after  rather  a  pleasant  and 
favorable  passage,  ....  arrived  in  the  evening  at  the  ancient  capital  of 
Andalusia.  It  is  admirably  situated  on  the  banks  of  the  Guadalquivir, 
in  the  midst  of  an  extensive  and  fertile  plain,  and  is  surrounded  with 
the  ancient  Moorish  wall,  that  was  so  terribly  defended  against  St.  Fer 
dinand.  Under  the  Arabs,  it  was  one  of  the  largest  and  richest  cities 
in  Spain  ;  and,  on  its  surrender,  nearty  three  hundred  thousand  Moors, 
it  is  said,  emigrated  to  Granada,  and  yet  did  not  depopulate  it ;  so  that, 
in  1426,  it  had  again  above  three  hundred  thousand  souls  within  its 
walls.  The  circumstance  that  the  American  fleets  came  here,  increased 
its  wealth  prodigiously,  between  the  end  of  the  fifteenth  century  and 
the  year  1717,  as  its  churches  and  convents  sufficiently  prove  ;  but  the 
expulsion  of  the  Moors  by  Philip  III.  gave  it  a  severe  shock.  The 
fall  of  the  manufactures,  on  which  its  population  depended,  and  which 
fell  from  the  introduction  of  other  modes  of  dress,  —  as  those  of  Lyons 
afterwards  did,  —  hastened  its  decay  ;  and  finally,  the  exclusive  mo 
nopoly  given  to  Cadiz,  and  the  gradual  filling  up  of  its  river,  —  which 
is  now  no  longer  navigable  for  large  vessels,  though  it  might  again  be 
made  so,  —  completed  its  ruin,  and  it  lies  lifeless  and  inactive,  — jacet 
ingens  litore  truncus,  —  with  a  population  of  hardly  ninety  thousand 
souls. 

Amidst  all  this  decay,  however,  Seville  is  one  of  the  interesting 
cities  of  Spain,  and  for  the  arts  and  letters  perhaps  the  most  so  ;  for  the 
splendid  epoch  of  the  Moors,  the  residence  of  the  early  Castilian  kings, 
and  the  wealth  of  the  newly  discovered  Americas,  have  left  behind 
them  monuments  of  no  common  note  ;  while,  at  the  same  time,  the 
circumstance  that  there  are  curious  Roman  ruins  in  the  neighborhood, 
and  that  in  the  sixteenth  century  it  was  the  capital  seat  of  the  genu- 


238  LIFE  OF   GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1818. 

ine  Spanish  school  in  painting,  increase  its  claims  and  its  interest  until, 
I  am  hardly  disposed  to  doubt,  they  are  unrivalled  in  Spain. 

To  begin,  then,  with  the  oldest.  You  pass  out  of  Seville  by  the 
Faubourg  Triana,  —  which  is  a  corruption  of  Traiana,  —  and,  after 
stopping  an  instant  at  the  fine  Convent  of  San  Isidro  del  Campo  to  see 
the  tomb  of  that  Alfonso  Perez  de  Guzman  who  gave  a  new  escutcheon 
to  the  family  of  Medina  Sidonia  by  the  sacrifice  of  his  son  at  the  siege 
of  Tarifa,  you  find  on  the  right  bank  of  the  Guadalquivir,  a  league 
from  the  city,  the  extensive  ruins  of  Italica.  It  was  certainly  the  na 
tive  place  of  Trajan  and  Silius  Italicus,  and  may  have  given  birth  to 
Hadrian  and  Theodosius,  for  it  seems  hardly  probable  that  the  favor 
of  one  emperor  could  have  spread  out  so  large  a  city  as  the  ruins  here 
indicate.  The  most  interesting  remains  are  of  the  walls,  baths,  etc., 
and  especially  of  an  amphitheatre  and  some  mosaics,  of  which  La  Borde 
has  given  a  detailed  and  interesting  description,  with  a  history  of  the 
city  down  to  its  final  fall  in  the  sixth  century,  in  a  folio  volume  pub 
lished  some  years  since  at  Paris.  Everything,  however,  is  neglected. 
The  amphitheatre  even  is  falling  in  every  year  ;  the  mosaics,  as  I  abso 
lutely  saw,  are  a  part  of  a  sheepfold,  and,  of  course,  more  and  more 
broken  up  every  day  ;  and  the  only  person,  I  believe,  who  takes  any 
interest  in  these  curious  remains,  is  a  poor  advocate  of  Seville,  who 
comes  out  here  on  the  feast  days,  and  digs  among  them  with  his  own 
hands,  though  what  he  has  found  and  what  I  saw  in  the  Alcazar 
might  well  excite  to  more  important  excavations,  if  there  were  either 
taste  or  ctiriosity  in  the  government  to  be  excited. 

Next  comes  the  Alcazar,  formerly  the  palace  of  the  Moorish  kings, 
where  I  passed  a  great  many  pleasant  hours,  and  dined  daily,  with  its 
kind,  open-hearted,  chivalrous  governor,  Sir  John  Downie.  In  mod 
ern  times  it  has  been  much  altered  and  enlarged  ;  but  still  there  are  a 
great  many  apartments,  particularly  the  bathing-rooms  and  the  hall 
of  the  ambassadors,  that  are  Arabic,  as  is  its  general  air,  and  its  gar 
dens  of  all  flowers  and  fragrance,  so  that,  notwithstanding  its  changes, 
it  yet  remains  one  of  the  very  curious  monuments  of  Arabian  archi 
tecture 

[The  Cathedral]  is  three  hundred  and  ninety-eight  feet  long  and 
two  hundred  and  ninety-one  feet  wide,  and  altogether  one  of  the  most 
pure,  solemn,  and  imposing  specimens  of  the  genuine,  uncorrupted, 
unmixed  Gothic  style.  Indeed,  its  great  size,  its  immense  naves,  sup 
ported  by  the  largest  and  finest  columns  of  the  kind,  its  rich  chapels, 
whose  walls  are  covered  with  the  works  of  Murillo  and  Cano,  and  its 
ninety-three  storied  windows,  painted  in  the  best  age  of  the  art  by 


M.  27.]  SPANISH  PAINTERS.  239 

the  best  artists,  that  were  brought  here  for  the  purpose  from  different 
parts  of  Europe,  entitle  it  to  the  rank  claimed  for  it  in  Spain,  that 
of  one  of  the  very  finest  specimens  of  Gothic  architecture  in  Europe. 
Annexed  to  the  Cathedral,  and  belonging  to  it,  is  a  library  that  must 
interest  an  American  at  least,  since  it  was  founded  by  Hernando  Co 
lon,  a  natural  son  of  the  discoverer  of  our  country.  .... 

Seville,  however,  should  also  be  considered  as  the  capital  seat  of 
the  genuine  Spanish  school  in  painting.  It  is  to  the  Italian  school 
what  the  Sylvanus  and  the  Borghese  Gladiator  are  to  the  Apollo  and 
the  Niobe  ;  the  perfection  of  human  beauty,  but  nothing  ideal,  noth 
ing  taken  from  that  hidden  source  of  more  than  mortal  grace  and 
harmony,  where  Raphael  stole  the  ideas  for  his  Galatea,  his  Psyche, 
and  his  Madonnas,  as  Prometheus  stole  the  fire  of  heaven.  This  is 
certainly  wanting  ;  yet,  perhaps,  no  man  ever  stood  before  the  works  of 
Murillo  here, —  his  Feeding  the  Five  Thousand,  and  his  Moses  opening 
the  Rock,  in  the  Caridad,  or  his  Assumption,  in  the  Capuchinos, — 
and  yet  could  be  guilty  of  breathing  a  single  regret  at  the  recollec 
tions  of  Italy The  wonderful  genius  of  Murillo  can  be  studied 

and  felt  nowhere  but  at  Seville,  where  he  lived  and  died,  and  whose 
Cathedral,  convents,  and  houses  are  full  of  his  works.  Velasquez,  too, 
was  a  Sevilian ;  but  he  lived  and  labored  at  Madrid,  and  must  be 
sought  there  in  the  Palace,  and  in  the  Academy  of  San  Fernando  ; 
but  except  him,  I  believe  there  is  no  Spanish  painter  of  high  merit, 
that  cannot  be  better  understood  at  Seville  than  anywhere  else,  espe 
cially  Herrera  and  Cano,  who,  with  Velasquez  and  Murillo,  are  the 
great  masters  of  the  school. 

Of  the  people  of  Seville  I  saw  a  good  deal  and  under  different 
aspects,  during  the  week  I  was  there  ;  that  is,  a  good  deal  for  so  short 
a  period.  The  lower  classes  are  gay  almost  to  folly,  or,  at  least,  were 
so  at  that  moment,  for  it  was  the  season  of  the  great  annual  fair  at 
Santiponce.  To  this  fair  all  Seville  goes  out,  during  a  week,  every 
day.  There  are  nothing  but  playthings,  showy  ornaments,  and  other 
trifles  sold  there  ;  and  as  they  come  back  into  the  city,  a  crowd  is  sta 
tioned  at  the  bridge  and  for  half  a  mile  farther  up,  that  abuses  them 
with  Andalusian  volubility  for  their  finery,  which  they  gayly  hold  out 
and  as  gayly  defend.  In  short,  it  is  a  kind  of  carnival,  and  I  used  to 
walk  out  that  way  for  half  an  hour  in  the  evening,  to  witness  and 
enjoy  this  singular  and  striking  exhibition  of  the  light-hearted  gayety 
of  the  popular  character  here,  which,  like  the  Roman,  never  passes  to 
excess  from  this  kind  of  excitement,  as  the  character  of  the  North 
does  ;  for  in  London  or  Berlin  you  could  not  have  such  a  crowd  and 
such  abuse  as  I  heard  without  quarrels. 


240  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1818. 

I  knew  in  Seville  a  good  many  ecclesiastics, —  Guzman,  who  once 
commanded  a  Spanish  frigate  and  is  now  a  canon  of  the  Cathedral, 
old,  and  one  of  the  mildest,  kindest,  and  most  elegant  gentlemen  I 
remember  to  have  met ;  Pereyra,  very  rich,  with  some  learning  and 
a  great  deal  of  taste,  who  served  me  regularly  six  hours  a  day  as 
cicerone,  and  showed  me  everything  in  and  about  the  city  ;  and  two 
or  three  others  of  less  name.  The  Archbishop  was  out  of  town,  and 
I  did  not  think  him  worth  a  journey  of  three  leagues.  But  the  eccle 
siastics  in  Spain  never  will  serve  for  evening  society,  for  in  the  even 
ing  they  have  their  duties,  their  habits,  and  their  suppers.  In  the 
evening,  then,  I  used  to  go  to  the  houses  of  some  of  the  nobility  that 
have  tertuliiis  :  to  Mestre's,  who  belongs  to  what  is  called  the  sangre 
azuL  —  the  blue  blood,  —  but  who,  however  his  blood  may  be  colored, 
or  whatever  may  be  his  pretensions,  has  a  fine  collection  of  pictures 
and  a  pleasant  family  ;  to  the  house  of  the  Conde  de  Arcos,  a  good- 
natured  gentleman,  whom  I  knew  in  Madrid  ;  and  to  the  little  dances 
at  the  Countess  de  Castillejas,  which  made  a  more  rational  amusement 
than  I  ever  met  before  at  a  Spanish  tertulia. 

Every  day,  too,  I  dined  regularly  at  the  Mooiish  castle,  with  its 
chivalrous  castellan,  Sir  John  Downie,  a  frank,  vehement  Scotchman, 
who  has  risen  to  much  favor  by  his  conduct  during  the  last  war.  He 
came  out  first  with  Sir  John  Moore,  and  returned  with  the  expedi 
tion  ;  then  came  out  again  with  Sir  Arthur  Wellesley,  and  gained 
such  reputation  in  Estremadura,  that  a  legion  of  seven  thousand  men 
was  collected  by  the  influence  of  his  name,  and  served  under  him 
during  the  rest  of  the  war  with  great  success.  It  was  there  he  received 
the  present  of  Pizarro's  sword,  from  Pizarro's  family,  which  he  showed 
to  me,  and  which  I  saw  with  no  common  interest.  This  sword,  too, 
has  attached  to  it  a  story  that  well  shows  the  chivalrous  character  of 
its  present  possessor.  He  had  it  at  his  side  in  1812,  when  the  famous 
attack  was  made  on  Seville,  where  he  commanded  the  vanguard  formed 
of  his  own  legion.  At  the  moment  he  approached,  the  French  began 
to  break  up  the  only  bridge  by  which  the  city  could  be  reached  ;  and, 
in  order  to  prevent  them,  Sir  John  made  a  charge  at  the  head  of  his 
troops.  A  chasm  had  already  been  made,  but,  thinking  only  of  his 
object,  he  put  spurs  to  his  horse  and  leaped  to  the  enemy's  side.  His 
men,  however,  who  had  not  horses  of  such  mettle,  could  not  follow, 
and  he  remained  alone.  At  this  instant,  he  was  struck  by  a  grape- 
shot,  and,  while  half  senseless,  was  made  prisoner.  Still  he  did  not 
forget  his  sword,  and,  gathering  the  little  strength  that  remained  to 
him,  he  threw  it  back  over  the  chasm  among  his  own  soldiers,  who 


JE.  27.]  CONTRABANDISTS.  241 

recognized  and  saved  it.  The  scabbard,  however,  being  fastened  to 
his  side,  fell  into  the  hands  of  the  enemy,  and  they  had  the  meanness 
to  keep  it  ;  so  that,  though  the  city  was  taken  and  he  was  liberated 
two  days  afterwards,  it  was  never  found  again.  This  and  a  great 
many  other  similar  stories  he  used  to  relate  to  me,  with  Scottish  open- 
heartedness,  as  we  sat  by  his  Moorish  fountains  or  walked  in  the  cor 
ridor  of  Charles  V.  after  dinner  ;  and  these  hours  I  shall  remember 
as  among  the  pleasantest  I  have  passed  in  Spain. 

My  week  in  Seville  —  which  was  longer  than  I  intended  to  remain 
there,  though  not  so  long  as  the  city,  its  monuments  and  society,  de 
served  —  hastened  rapidly  away,  and  on  the  morning  of  the  15th  of 
October  I  set  off  for  Lisbon.  The  indirect  but  best  route,  which 
passes  through  Badajoz,  is  so  dangerous  from  the  number  of  robbers 
that  now  infest  it,  that,  after  taking  the  best  advice  I  could  get,  I 
resolved  to  go  directly  across  the  mountains,  under  protection  of  one 
of  the  regular  bodies  of  contrabandists  that  smuggle  dollars  from 
Seville  to  Lisbon,  and  in  return  smuggle  back  English  goods  from 
Lisbon  to  Seville. 

For  this  purpose  I  sent  to  Zalamea,  one  of  their  little  villages  'in 
the  mountains,  and  two  of  them  came  openly  to  the  city,  and  with 
two  extra  mules  took  me  and  my  baggage  and  carried  me  to  join  their 
marauding  party.  We  reached  it  about  sundown  the  same  evening, 
and  found  them  all  already  bivouacked  for  the  night,  twenty-eight 
strong,  with  about  forty  mules.  They  were  high-spirited,  high-minded 
fellows,  each  armed  with  a  gun,  a  pair  of  pistols,  a  sword  and  dirk, 
lying  about  in  groups  under  some  enormous  cork-trees,  or  else  prepar 
ing  supper  at  a  fire  they  had  kindled.  I  easily  accommodated  myself 
to  their  manners,  and  spreading  my  blanket  on  the  ground,  ate  as 
heartily  and  slept  as  soundly  as  the  hardiest  of  them. 

The  next  morning  we  felt  quite  acquainted,  and,  in  the  course  of  a 
journey  of  eight  days  through  a  country  little  frequented,  and  where, 
in  fact,  we  avoided  all  human  habitation,  a  curious  sort  of  intimacy 
grew  up  between  me  and  my  kindly,  faithful  guides,  which  gave  me 
a  view  of  human  nature  on  a  side  where  I  never  thought  to  have  seen 
it.  Two  of  them  were  evidently  men  of  much  natural  talent,  and 
from  them  I  gathered  a  pretty  definite  account  of  the  principles  and 
feelings  of  the  fraternity  and  of  their  political  and  religious  principles, 
which  were  strongly  marked  and  well  accommodated  to  their  situa 
tion.  This  kind  of  conversation,  indeed,  was  my  chief  amusement, 
for  everything  else  on  the  journey  was  dreary  and  cheerless  enough. 
Roads  we  sought  none,  but  saw  now  and  then  a  footpath  or  a  sheep- 

VOL.  i.  11  p 


242  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1818. 

track,  which  we  rather  avoided,  and  got  on  more  by  the  instinctive 
knowledge  of  the  guides  than  by  any  positive  indication  that  anybody 
had  ever  gone  that  way  before.  Strangers,  indeed,  almost  never  had  ; 
only  four  were  remembered  in  an  experience  of  thirty  years,  by  the 
whole  party  ;  and  in  truth,  when  the  discouragements  are  considered, 
—  two  rainy  nights  that  we  slept  out,  an  occasional  scantiness  of  pro 
visions,  and  the  fatigue  of  a  journey  of  eight  days  on  mules, —  I  do 
not  much  wonder  at  it. 

Yet,  for  myself,  I  must  needs  say  I  have  seldom  passed  eight  more 
interesting  days  ;  for  by  the  very  novelty  and  strangeness  of  every 
thing,  —  sleeping  out  every  night  but  one,  and  then  in  the  house  of 
the  chief  of  our  band  ;  dining  under  trees  at  noon  ;  living  on  a  foot 
ing  of  perfect  equality  and  good-fellowship  with  people  who  are  liable 
every  day  to  be  shot  or  hanged  by  the  laws  of  their  country  ;  indeed, 
leading  for  a  week  as  much  of  a  vagabond  life  as  if  I  were  an  Arab 
or  a  Mameluke,  —  I  came  soon  to  have  some  of  the  same  sort  of  gay 
recklessness  that  marked  the  character  of  my  companions.  In  short, 
I  had  fine  spirits  the  whole  way,  and  did  not  find  myself  to  have  been 
long  in  coming  to  the  borders  of  Portugal.  There  I  bade  farewell  to 
the  only  country  in  the  world  where  I  could  have  led  such  a  life  ;  the 
only  one,  indeed,  where  it  would  have  been  safer  to  be  under  the  pro 
tection  of  contrabandists  and  outlaws,  than  under  that  of  the  regular 
government,  against  which  they  array  themselves. 

On  the  morning  of  the  18th  of  October  we  arrived  on  the  banks  of 
the  Chanza,  ....  We  had  been  travelling  through  a  rude,  barren 
country, .....  but  as  soon  as  we  had  passed  the  range  of  hills  beyond 
the  Chanza,  we  found  a  country  always  agreeable  and  often  well  culti 
vated  ;  and  this  continued  through  Serpa,  through  the  fine  vale  of  the 
Guadiana,  and  by  Alcacovas  to  Carvalho.  The  people,  too,  seem  to 
have  a  sense  and  feeling  for  this  beautiful  nature  that  the  Spaniards 
have  not.  Since  I  left  Catalonia  I  have  hardly  seen  a  country-house, 
and  there  they  are  not  properly  built ;  but  in  Portugal  I  have  found 
them  everywhere,  —  a  magnificent  one  with  a  fine  aqueduct  at  Serpa, 
many  others  scattered  along  the  route,  and  little  gardens  abounding 
in  fruits,  water,  and  shade,  belonging  to  the  better  sort  of  peasantry, 
of  which  no  trace  is  to  be  found  in  the  rest  of  the  Peninsula.  As  to 
the  character  of  the  people,  they  have  not  the  Spanish  force  and 
decision,  but  neither  have  they  the  Spanish  coldness,  pride,  and  obsti 
nacy.  They  are  even  polite  and  gentle,  so  that  the  first  peasant  I  met 
seemed  to  me  to  be  asking  alms,  when  he  was  only  bidding  me  "  God 
speed  "  ;  and  in  their  houses,  owing  to  the  free  introduction  of  English 


JR.  27.]  LISBON.  243 

manufactures  for  above  an  hundred  years,  under  the  Methuan  treaty, 
they  have  more  conveniences  and  are  able  to  receive  you  more  com 
fortably  than  in  Spain.  In  short,  from  what  five  days'  experience 
taught  me,  which  is  a  good  proportion  of  all  that  can  be  known  in 
this  little  kingdom,  I  would  rather  travel  in  Portugal  than  in  Spain, 
though  my  guides,  with  true  Spanish  exclusiveness,  were  every  mo 
ment  reminding  me  how  much  worse  it  was. 

On  the  23d,  just  five  months  from  the  day  I  entered  Madrid  for  the 
first  time,  I  reached  La  Moita  on  the  Tagus,  opposite  Lisbon,  and 
embarked  to  cross  it.  It  was  a  beautiful  day,  and  I  did  not  at  all 
regret  that  an  unfavorable  wind  kept  us  nearly  four  hours  in  passing 
only  fourteen  miles.*  The  city,  which,  with  its  suburbs,  forms  one 
long  line  upon  the  shore  of  above  eight  miles,  broken  by  as  many 
hills  that  finally  tower  above  it  and  are  covered  with  gardens,  vine 
yards,  and  orange  groves,  formed  a  splendid  view,  shifting  and  chang 
ing  into  new  and  striking  beauties  every  moment,  as  the  wind  drove 
us  up  or  the  current  carried  us  towards  the  mouth  of  the  river  ;  while, 
at  the  same  time,  the  shore  from  which  we  receded,  dotted  with  neat 
white  villages,  and  gay  with  cultivation  or  frowning  with  castles  and 
fortifications  on  its  bold,  solemn  cliffs,  added  to  the  effect  by  contrast, 
and  made  the  passage  worthy  of  the  beautiful  stanzas  Lord  Byron  has 
written  about  it.  At  last  we  landed,  and  I  finally  finished  the  most 
wearisome,  dangerous,  and  difficult  journey  I  ever  made,  though  cer 
tainly  one  of  the  most  interesting  and  instructive 

Lisbon  is,  in  its  situation  and  external  appearance,  a  most  beautiful 
city.  The  opening  into  the  ocean,  the  splendid  bosom  of  the  Tagus, 
which  here  stretches  to  the  breadth  of  twelve  miles  and  then  is  con 
tracted  again  by  the  precipices  below  Belein  to  a  comparatively 
narrow,  rapid  stream  ;  the  multitude  of  ships  crowded  together  by 
the  amphitheatre  of  hills ;  and  the  city,  which,  springing  from  the 
water's  edge,  rises  with  its  beautiful  white  houses  and  towers,  and 
is  crowned  behind  by  the  heights  that  are  ornamented  with  country- 
houses,  gardens,  convents,  and  churches,  —  altogether  make  it  a  kind 

*  Some  of  the  band  of  contrabandists  with  whom  he  had  travelled  came  as 
far  as  Lisbon,  and  Mr.  Ticknor  used  to  tell  the  following  anecdote  of  this  pas 
sage  across  the  Tagus.  These  men  had  become  attached  to  him,  and  had  ac 
quired  immense  faith  in  his  superior  power.  The  tacking  of  their  vessel,  under 
a  head  wind,  was  very  tedious  to  them,  and  one  of  them,  who  was  very  seasick, 
sent  for  "  Don  Jorge,"  and  besought  him  to  command  the  sailors  to  cease  going 
backward  and  forward,  and  to  take  them  straight  across,  nothing  doubting  that 
he  would  be  obeyed. 


244  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1818. 

of  rival  for  Naples.  But  within  there  is  little  to  justify  this  magnifi 
cent  exhibition  as  you  approach  it  ;  for,  besides  the  extreme  filthiness 
of  the  streets,  there  is  little  either  curious,  interesting,  or  beautiful  in 
the  buildings  and  architecture 

The  only  building  that  has  anything  like  a  classical  interest  is  the 
fine  convent  and  church  at  Belem,  an  immense  building  or  rather 
mass  of  buildings,  erected  about  1497,  in  a  singular  style,  between 
Gothic  and  Arabic,  by  the  famous  Dom  Manuel,  to  commemorate  the 
successful  accomplishment  of  the  great  voyage  of  Vasco  de  Gama.  It 
was  from  this  spot  he  went  out,  and  it  was  here  he  landed  again ;  and 
Camoens,  therefore,  has  consecrated  it  in  two  stanzas  that  might  have 
given  immortality  to  a  subject  less  interesting  and  worthy  than  this 
monument  of  the  greatest  of  all  the  Portuguese  achievements,  —  see 
Lusiad,  IV.  87,  and  X.  12,  —  for  Portugal  has  never  produced  so  great 
an  effect  on  the  world  as  by  the  discovery  of  the  Indies. 

But  of  all  the  works  at  Lisbon  that  deserve  to  be  seen,  the  most 
remarkable  is  certainly  the  aqueduct  that  supplies  the  city,  which  is, 
I  doubt  not,  unrivalled  either  as  a  conveyance  for  water  or  as  a  speci 
men  of  this  kind  of  architecture  ;  for,  as  antiquity  has  certainly  sent 
down  to  us  nothing  so  perfect  or  so  bold,  I  presume  modern  times 
have  no  competition  to  offer.  It  was  the  work  of  John  V.,  and  was 
built  between  1713  and  1732.  It  brings  the  water  from  Bellas,  about 
eleven  English  miles  from  Lisbon,  and  passes  frequently  under  ground, 
and  several  times  traverses  deep  valleys.  The  most  remarkable  point 
is  where  it  crosses  the  vale  of  Alcantara,  just  before  it  enters  the  city  ; 
and  here  it  altogether  exceeds  everything  I  have  seen,  even  the  Pont 
du  Gard,  which  is  more  remarkable  than  the  aqueducts  about  Rome. 
The  length  of  it  here  is  more  than  two  thousand  four  hundred  Paris  feet, 
and  it  passes  on  thirty-five  enormous  arches,  springing  from  the  depths 
of  the  valley  and  going  boldly  up  to  the  top,  of  which  the  one  in  the 
centre  is  one  hundred  and  seven  feet  eight  inches  wide  and  two  hundred 
and  thirty  feet  ten  inches  high,  —  the  very  boldest  arch,  I  presume, 
ever  risked,  —  and  yet  of  such  exact  proportions  and  construction  that 
it  resisted  the  tremendous  earthquake  of  1755.  The  water  passes  the 
whole  way  completely  covered,  in  a  kind  of  continued  building  in 
which  you  can  walk  upright,  and  divided  into  two  channels,  in  one 
of  which  it  flows  half  the  year  and  in  the  other  the  other  half,  so  that 
it  may  be  kept  clean  and  in  repair,  —  an  advantage,  I  believe,  no  other 
aqueduct  possesses.  On  each  side,  too,  is  a  walk  like  a  bridge,  and 
the  view  from  it  of  the  valley  winding  up  between  the  hills,  orna 
mented  with  the  country-seats  of  the  nobility,  and  covered  with  orange 


M.  27.]  CINTRA.  245 

and  lemon  and  almond  trees,  is  worthy  of  the  neighborhood  of  Lis 
bon  ;  while,  as  you  look  perpendicularly  down,  your  head  grows  giddy 
at  the  awful  height.  Or,  as  you  look  up  from  the  bottom,  and  see  the 
majestic  arch  over  you,  at  such  an  elevation  that  its  thickness  is  sensi 
bly  diminished  to  the  sight,  though  it  still  echoes  and  re-echoes  every 
sound  you  utter,  you  feel  that  indistinct  impression  of  inferiority  and 
subjection  that  you  do  when  you  stand  before  one  of  the  great  works 
of  nature 

I  cannot,  of  course,  speak  with  minuteness  or  assurance  of  Lisbon. 
I  was  there  only  from  October  23  to  November  21,  and  my  time  was 
so  incessantly  occupied  that,  excepting  in  the  evening,  I  went  out  only 
by  accident,  unless  it  were  to  one  of  the  public  libraries 

But,  though  I  should  pass  over  everything  else,  I  must  not  pass 
over  Cintra.  To  this  beautiful  spot  I  went  with  my  friend  Sir  John 
Campbell,  and  we  passed  there  three  days,  at  the  festival  of  San  Mar- 
tinho,  when  all  the  country  was  rejoicing  in  the  balmy  freshness  of  a 
second  spring,  and  all  the  fields  and  valleys  were  filled  with  flowers, 
as  they  are  with  us  in  the  month  of  May.  This  singular  phenomenon 
I  have  been  witnessing  ever  since  the  rains  fell  in  the  end  of  Septem 
ber  ";  for.  since  then,  the  earth  has  been  putting  on  its  gayest  hues 
again,  so  that  now,  when  the  second  spring,  as  it  is  here  called,  may 
be  considered  in  its  perfection,  everything,  even  to  the  lilies  and  roses 
and  lilacs,  is  in  blossom.  Cintra,  therefore,  was  exquisitely  beautiful. 
It  is  the  height  first  descried  on  approaching  this  coast,  and  is  called 
by  the  sailors  the  Eock  of  Lisbon.  You  approach  it  from  the  city 
by  a  road  that  offers  occasionally  a  few  fine  prospects  ;  but  you  are 
obliged  to  turn  the  angle  of  the  mountain  and  come  round  full  upon 
the  side  that  faces  the  northwest  before  you  can  see  it. 

Cintra,  therefore,  is  a  village  and  a  collection  of  country-seats  scat 
tered  on  the  declivity  and  in  the  dells  of  a  precipitous  mountain, 
whose  sides  are  covered  about  two  thirds  of  the  way  to  the  summit 
with  the  beautiful  verdure  of  rich  and  various  woods,  and  broken  by 
innumerable  little  cascades  that  come  rushing  down  over  its  rocks  ; 
while  from  its  base  extends  a  luxuriant  plain,  full  of  culture  and 
population,  which,  at  the  distance  of  between  four  and  five  miles,  is 
terminated  by  the  ocean,  whose  magnificence  finally  closes  up  the 
whole  prospect.  The  road  passes,  I  should  think,  about  half-way 
between  the  summit  and  the  base,  and  beginning  from  the  southeast 
ern  point,  where  you  first  enter,  extends  round  to  beyond  the  village 
of  Colares,  —  a  distance  of  four  or  five  miles,  —  cut  like  a  kind  of 
cornice  in  the  side  of  the  mountain,  whose  windings  and  indentations 


246  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1818. 

it  follows,  so  that  the  prospect  shifts  and  varies  at  every  step  you 
advance  ;  now  hiding  you  in  some  sunless  little  dell,  where  you  have 
only  the  secrecy  of  a  solitude,  covered  by  the  deep  shades  of  its  rocky 
forest,  and  made,  as  it  were,  audible  to  the  feelings  by  the  gushing 
of  some  cascade  from  above,  and  now  carrying  you  out  upon  a  pro 
jecting  precipice,  from  which  you  have  again  the  wide  and  glorious 
prospect  of  the  rock,  its  broken  sides,  and  the  houses  and  castles  that 
cover  them,  with  all  the  richness  of  the  plain  below  and  all  the  gran 
deur  of  the  ocean  beyond. 

All  this  was  heightened  to  me  by  the  society  of  those  who  make 
every  "  scene  of  enchantment  more  dear  "  ;  for  with  Sir  J.  Campbell, 
Mr.  Musgrave,  the  British  agent,  and  Count  Bombelles,  the  Austrian 
charge  d'affaires,  all  pleasant  and  interesting  men,  and  men  of  excel 
lent  culture,  I  passed  my  time  in  the  family  of  Baron  Castel  Branco, 
whom  we  joined  every  morning  before  breakfast,  and  from  whom  we 
did  not  separate  until  midnight.  This  excellent  family,  commonly 
known  here  by  the  name  of  the  Lacerdas,  is  of  the  ancient  and  most 
respectable  Portuguese  nobility ;  and  consists,  besides  the  father  and 
mother,  —  who  are  worthy  people,  —  of  three  accomplished  and  in 
teresting  daughters,  one  of  whom,  Donna  Maria  da  Luz,  is  a  most 
open-hearted,  sweet,  intelligent  girl.  Their  hospitality  was  altogether 
of  that  kind  and  winning  sort,  which  comes  upon  you  with  the 
heartiness  of  old  familiarity ;  and  when  I  had  passed  half  the  first 
day  there,  I  felt  that  I  should  wrong  their  kindness  if  I  went  any 
where  else.  They,  like  my  friends  from  Lisbon,  had  of  course  seen 
everything  at  Cintra  for  the  thousandth  time  ;  but  each  morning  after 
breakfast,  mules  were  brought  to  the  door  for  us  all,  and  the  whole 
cavalcade  of  nine  or  ten  persons  set  out  to  scramble  over  the  rocks 
together. 

In  this  way  we  went  successively  to  the  palace  where  Alphonso 
VI.  has  left  the  traces  of  his  weary  footsteps,  and  where  he  died  in 
1669,  after  an  imprisonment  of  seven  years ;  to  the"sete  ahis,"  — 
seven  sighs,  —  the  country-seat  of  the  Marquis  of  Marialva,  where 
the  famous  Convention  of  Cintra  was  signed  ;  to  Penhaverde,  the 
favorite  retreat  of  Don  Joao  de  Castro,  the  great  navigator  and  pow 
erful  viceroy  of  the  Indies  .  .  „  .  ;  to  Mon  Serrate,  the  romantic, 
elegant  seclusion  of  that  Mr.  Beckford  whom  Lord  Byron  has  justly 
"  damned  to  eternal  memory  "  under  the  name  of  Vathek  ;  *  to  the 
Quinta  da  Penha,  to  Colares,  and,  finally,  to  the  rock  which  forms 

*  From  the  story  of  that  name,  of  which  he  was  the  author.  —  Childe 
Harold,  Canto  I.  Stanza  22. 


M.  27.]  EXCURSIONS.  247 

the  most  western  limit  of  the  European  continent,  and  where  nature, 
by  a  glorious  boundary,  marks  the  termination  of  her  works  in  the 
Old  World.  Besides  this,  too,  we  went,  of  course,  to  the  Moorish  for 
tifications  on  one  of  the  heights,  and  to  the  Cork  Convent,  —  so  called 
because  it  is  lined  with  cork,  to  prevent  the  humidity  that  reigns  in 
Cintra,  —  a  fearful  hermitage,  situated  on  the  giddy  brow  of  the 
precipice,  nearly  three  thousand  feet  a"bove  the  level  of  the  ocean 
that  rolls  below,  from  both  of  which  we  enjoyed  the  grand  and  im 
posing  prospects  that  their  height  and  situation  naturally  imply. 
But  it  is  in  vain  to  talk  of  the  prospects  of  this  enchanting  spot,  for 
if  I  were  to  begin  I  should  never  finish 

My  life  during  these  three  days  was  tranquil,  and  the  pleasure  I 
enjoyed  was  of  that  quiet  kind  which  leaves  no  weariness.  I  rose 
early,  and  opening  my  windows  to  the  balmy  freshness  of  the  sea 
son,  and  the  beautiful  prospect  of  the  rock,  and  its  valleys,  with 
the  plain,  and  the  ocean,  sat  down  and  read  in  Dante,  or  Camoens, 
or  Lord  Byron,  whose  descriptions  here  are  faithful  as  nature,  more 
so  even  than  I  found  them  in  Spain  ;  though  there  I  was  struck 
with  them.  At  nine  o'clock,  Count  Bombelles  —  with  whom  I 
lodged  —  came  into  my  chamber,  and  we  went  over  to  the  beau 
tiful  country-house  of  the  Lacerda  family,  where  we  breakfasted. 
Then  followed  immediately  the  excursions  to  the  rock,  or  along 
the  road,  on  which,  when  at  about  two  o'clock  we  became  somewhat 
hungry  and  very  fatigued,  we  stopped  in  some  little  secret,  shady 
dell,  and  took  the  collation  that  had  followed  us.  At  evening  we 
returned  and  dined,  never  alone,  for  the  Baron's  table  always  had 
half  a  dozen  extra  covers,  and  there  was  generally  somebody  from 
Lisbon,  or  some  friends  in  Cintra,  that  came  in  to  occupy  them. 
Afterwards,  of  course,  cards  —  the  only,  the  universal,  the  unvarying 
amusement  in  Portugal  —  came  in  ;  but  in  this  house  alone  I  found 
enough  who  would  not  play  to  make  a  pleasant  party  in  one  corner 
of  the  saloon,  where,  with  Count  Bombelles,  Mr.  Musgrave,  Donna 
Maria,  and  two  or  three  others,  I  finished  the  evening. 

Lisbon,  on  my  return,  seemed  cold  and  inhospitable,  for  such  sort 
of  kindness  as  I  received  at  Cintra  is  to  be  replaced  by  no  other. 
....  There  is  no  Prado,  as  at  Madrid,  for  the  Portuguese  women 
are  still  more  restrained  than  the  Spanish ;  and  the  public  walks 
which  the  Marquis  de  Pombal  made,  for  the  express  purpose  of  pro 
ducing  a  freer  intercourse  between  the  sexes,  are  still  unfrequented. 
....  There  is,  too,  properly  speaking,  no  society,  for  in  these  coun 
tries,  where  comfort  and  happiness  are  little  sought,  social  intercourse 


248  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1818. 

can  be  produced  only  by  great  wealth,  and  great  wealth  has  now 
passed  to  the  Brazils  with  the  chief  nobility,  and  those  who  remain 
do  not  seek  the  pleasures  of  society.  When  Marshal  Beresford  is 
here,  —  which  he  is  not  now,  —  there  is  much  company  at  his  palace, 
but  that  is  all ;  and  even  what  is  called  society,  in  the  houses  of  the 
rich  merchants,  is  but  a  great  dinner,  with  cards  in  the  evening,  to 
such  excess  and  fatuity,  that  out  of  forty-five  people  I  have  counted 
ten  tables,  and  of  course,  only  five  persons  remained,  like  myself,  to 
walk  up  and  down  among  them,  in  wearisome  listlessness.  Another 
embarrassment  to  society  is  the  distance  at  which  people  live  from 
each  other.  The  city  extends  eight  miles  along  the  river,  and  there 
is  no  part  of  it  in  which  either  the  rich,  the  noble,  or  the  fashionable 
chiefly  live,  or  more  resort,  than  to  any  other  ;  so  that  any  person  of 
a  particular  class  finds  himself  at  a  fatal  distance  from  the  rest,  with 
whom  he  would  naturally  associate  ;  and  I,  who  lived  near  the  book 
sellers,  and  the  Public  Library,  happened,  to  be  sure,  to  be  near  one 
or  two  persons  whom  I  could  call  my  friends,  such  as  Mr.  Stephens, 
Mr.  Musgrave,  etc.,  but  was,  at  the  same  time,  four  miles  from  the 
two  families  I  would  gladly  have  visited  the  most  frequently. 

I  do  not  mean,  however,  that  I  felt  the  want  of  society,  even  at 

Lisbon I  knew  a  good  many  persons  who  interested  me  more 

or  less  ;  several  men  of  letters,  such  as  Magedo,  Barbosa,  Trigozo,  and 
Andrade,  with  whom  I  was  familiar ;  several  ecclesiastics,  who,  by 
the  by,  are  in  general  more  cultivated  than  the  clergy  at  Madrid  ;  and 
several  families,  both  foreigners  and  Portuguese.  Among  the  last  was 
Mr.  Stephens,  an  old  English  gentleman,  at  whose  table  I  always  had 
a  plate,  and  where  I  met  generally  John  Bell,  Mr.  Musgrave,  and  two 
or  three  other  men  of  letters,  and  M.  Lesseps,  the  French  chargd 
d'affaires,  an  uncommonly  interesting  man  from  his  knowledge  and 
vivacity,  and  remarkable  as  the  only  individual  who  escaped  from 
La  Peyrouse's  last  fatal  expedition,  ....  of  which  he  never  speaks  but 
with  very  strong  emotions,  for  he  loved  La  Peyrouse  like  a  father. 

Two  Portuguese  families  are  to  be  noted The  first  is  the  family 

of  the  Count  d'Alba,  whose  wife  is  sister  to  the  famous  Count  Pal- 
mella,  —  now  just  going  to  be  the  chief  minister  at  the  Brazils,  —  and 
is  considered  the  most  cultivated  woman  in  the  highest  class  of 
the  nobility.  Like  her  sister,  Mad.  de  Souza,  —  who  gave  me  my 
letter  to  her,  —  she  is  rather  awkward  and  dry  in  her  manner  ;  but 
still  she  is  interesting,  because  she  endeavors  to  be  so  by  good  sense 
and  unpretending  kindness  ;  and  if  she  had  not  lived  nearly  four  miles 
off,  I  should  have  gone  to  see  her  often.  For  the  same  reason  I  saw 


M.  27.]  SOCIETY  AT  LISBON.  249 

but  little  of  the  Duchess  de  Cadaval,  the  most  distinguished  and  the 
most  extraordinary  woman  in  Portugal.  She  is  daughter  of  the  Duke 
of  Luxembourg,  and  married  the  Duke  de  Cadaval,  who  was  of  the 
Braganza  blood,  and  who,  with  the  family  of  Lafoes  and  the  family 
of  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  had  the  only  dukedoms  in  Portugal 

The  name  of  Cadaval  is  the  great  name  in  Portugal,  and  the  people 
already  look  to  it,  as  they  did  to  the  name  of  Braganza  in  the  time  of 
the  Philips  ;  and  the  intention  of  the  wild  conspiracy  of  Gomez  Freire, 
in  June,  1817,  was  to  take  the  Duke  of  Cadaval,  inexperienced  as  he 
is,  and  place  him  by  violence  upon  the  vacant  throne.  The  Duchess, 
however,  who  is  now,  I  suppose,  about  fifty  years  old,  pale  and  feeble, 
but  with  an  animated,  original  countenance,  and  strong,  cautious  tal 
ents  covered  by  great  elegance  of  manners  and  gentleness  of  disposi 
tion,  has  thus  far  kept  all  suspicion  from  finally  attaching  to  herself 
or  her  son.  Still,  however,  her  very  conduct  and  caution  alarm  the 
government.  She  sees  no  Portuguese  society,  and  teaches  her  son  to 
hold  himself  aloof  from  intercourse  and  observation  ;  she  keeps  still 
more  removed  from  foreigners  ;  and  though  she  received  me  with 
politeness  and  attention,  because  I  brought  her  a  pressing  letter  from 
her  near  relation,  the  Prince  Laval,  there  was  a  sort  of  calculated 
elegance  in  her  manner  whenever  I  saw  her,  which  was  clearly  in 
tended  for  effect 

The  only  Portuguese  families  to  which  I  could  have  gone  with 
pleasure  would  have  been  Count  d'Alba's,  that  was  too  far  off,  and 
the  Lacerdas,  that  had  not  come  in  from  Cintra  when  I  left  Lisbon. 
But  when  I  had  a  moment  of  time  during  the  day,  it  was  only  neces 
sary  to  go  out  and  climb  some  of  the  hills  in  the  city,  and  the  beauti 
ful  prospects  that  everywhere  abound  came  upon  my  heart  like  inti 
macy  and  kindness.  Among  other  favorite  spots,  I  went  several  times 
to  the  English  burying-ground,  beautiful  in  itself  from  its  solemn 
neatness  and  from  tlie  cypresses,  poplars,  and  elms  with  which  it  is 
planted,  and  still  more  so  from  the  prospects  it  commands.  It  was 
stipulated  for  in  the  treaty  Cromwell  made  in  1655,  and  all  Protest 
ants  are  now  buried  there.  I  saw  a  few  names  that  I  knew,  among 
others  those  of  Mrs.  Humphrey's  father  and  mother,  and  that  of  Dr. 
Doddridge  ;  but  I  sought  in  vain  for  Fielding's,  who  died  here  in  1754, 
and  the  tradition  of  whose  grave  is  preserved  only  by  Mr.  Bell,  and 
two  or  three  other  Englishmen  in  Lisbon,  who  take  an  interest  in 
letters.* 

*  The  preceding  thirty-five  pages  consist  of  Journal  made  up  from  note 
books,  at  his  first  leisure  after  the  dates,  as  was  his  wont.     See  p.  86. 
11* 


250  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOB. 


CHAPTER    XIII. 

Voyage  from  Lisbon  to  Falmouth.  — Immediate  Departure  for  Paris.  — 
Society.  —  Talleyrand.  —  Return  to  London.  —  Lord  Holland.  —  Sir 
J.  Mackintosh.  —  John  Allen.  —  Lord  Brougham.  —  Hatfield.  —  Wo- 
burn.  —  Cambridge. 

To  MR.  ELISHA  TICKNOR. 

LISBON,  November  4,  1818. 

....  Your  letter,  my  dear  father,  has  much  alarmed  me  about  my 
mother.  ....  I  pray  you  to  speak  on  this  subject  with  perfect  plain 
ness  to  me.  Do  not  let  me  be  unprepared  for  this  blow,  if  indeed  it 
awaits  me.  I  know  that  what  you  say  does  not  necessarily  convey 
this  dreadful  implication,  and  I  trust  it  is  only  my  feelings  to-day 
that  have  inferred  it  where  it  was  not  intended  to  be  expressed,  but  I 
grow  cold  as  I  think  of  it,  even  among  the  possibilities  of  the  future. 

November  7. 

I  have  never  felt  so  disheartened  and  discouraged  since  I  left  home. 
....  This  is  chiefly  owing  to  the  sad  news  I  have  received  here,*  and 
a  little  to  the  slowness  with  which  I  proceed  in  the  purposes  for  which 
I  came.  I  do  not  mean  that  I  find  any  difficulties  in  the  language 
or  literature,  for  there  are  none, ....  but  I  have  books  to  buy,  and 
the  booksellers  are  ignorant,  tardy,  and  unaccommodating ;  I  have 
information  to  gain  from  men  of  letters,  and  they  are  few,  and  in  gen 
eral  unaccustomed  to  think  much  upon  the  subjects  on  which  I  have 
asked  them ;  so  that,  though  they  are  kind  and  even  very  kind,  I 

hardly  get  along  at  all.     This  disheartens  me  very  much For 

three  days  I  have  worked  sixteen  and  eighteen  hours  a  day,  without 
fatigue,  in  my  room  and  in  the  public  library  ;  and  if  it  depended  on 
nobody  but  myself, I  could  be  gone  on  the  13th. 

November  13. 
Yesterday  I  received,  my  dearest  father,  yours  of  September  30. 

*  Of  the  death  of  his  brother-in-law,  Mr.  Woodward,  and  of  his  mother's 
indisposition. 


M.  27.]  ARRIVAL  IN  ENGLAND.  251 

I  cannot  tell  you  what  a  consolation  it  was  to  me  to  hear  that  my 
mother  is  better.  Lisbon  itself  looks  brighter  with  my  brightened 
thoughts,  and  even  the  sad,  rainy  weather  is  less  tiresome.  I  hope  a 
packet  will  sail  the  16th.  If  it  does,  I  shall  set  off  at  once. 

To  MR.  ELISHA  TICKNOR. 

LONDON,  December  2,  1818. 

I  wrote  to  you,  dearest  father  and  mother,  on  the  20th  of  last 
month,  from  Lisbon.  The  day  after,  I  sailed  in  the  packet  and  came 
to  anchor  in  Falmouth  Harbor  on  the  evening  of  the  28th  ;  .  .  .  .  and 
as  I  once  more  put  my  foot  upon  kindred  ground,  I  could  have  fallen 
down  and  embraced  it,  like  Julius  Caesar,  for,  as  I  have  often  told 
you,  once  well  out  of  Spain  and  Portugal,  I  feel  a8  if  I  were  more 
than  half-way  home,  even  though  I  have  the  no  very  pleasant  pros 
pect  of  returning  for  a  little  while  to  the  Continent  I  am  so  heartily 
glad  to  have  forsaken.  Early  the  next  morning  I  began  my  journey, 
and  I  cannot  express  to  you  how  I  have  been  struck  by  the  contrast 
between  Spain  —  which  is  now  continually  present  to  my  imagination 
as  a  country  dead  in  everything  a  nation  ought  to  be  —  and  England, 
where  the  smallest  village  and  the  humblest  peasant  bear  some  deci 
sive  mark  of  activity  and  improvement  and  vital  strength  and  power ; 
Spain,  where  all  is  so  stagnant  and  lifeless,  that  the  passage  from  one 
hamlet  to  another  is  a  matter  of  such  difficulty  and  danger  that  the 
peasants  hazard  it  only  in  bodies  and  strongly  armed,  and  England, 
where  it  may  almost  be  said  the  facility,  safety,  and  rapidity  of  con 
veyance  make  every  individual  in  the  kingdom  a  neighbor  to  every 
other.  I  assure  you  that  often,  as  I  was  rolling  along  the  smooth 
turnpikes,  and  saw  the  innumerable  coaches  glide  by  me  like  light 
ning,  or  looked  upon  my  map,  and  saw  the  whole  land  so  intersected 
with  roads  and  canals  that  it  looked  like  an  anatomy,  my  head  has 
grown  giddy  with  the  vain  effort  to  trace  put  a  comparison  with  the 
country  I  had  just  left,  and  account,  even  partially,  for  the  overwhelm 
ing  difference 

Yesterday  morning  I  came  early  to  Bath, ....  and  at  five  in  the 
evening  took  my  seat  in  the  mail-coach,  which,  this  morning  at  eight, 
landed  me  safely  in  the  London  CofFee-House,  Ludgate  Hill,  without 
the  least  curiosity  to  see  the  great  show  of  the  queen's  funeral,  which 
all  the  city  has  gone  out  in  the  mud  and  fog  to  gaze  at.* 

The  first  thing  I  asked  for  was,  of  course,  my  letters None  are 

*  Queen  Charlotte,  wife  of  George  III. 


LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1818. 

so  late  as  the  one  I  received  from  you  at  Lisbon,  just  before  I  left; .... 
still  I  am  extremely  anxious  to  receive  later  accounts,  which  will  tell 
me  the  effect  cold  weather  may  have  produced  on  my  mother's  very 
feeble  health. 

I  shall  remain  here  about  four  days,  just  long  enough  to  make  a 
few  arrangements  and  get  out  my  passport,  and  then  go  as  fast  as  I 
can  to  Paris.  On  board  the  packet  I  wrote  to  Mr.  Gallatin,  desiring 
him  to  take  out  the  order  for  opening  the  king's  library  to  me,  an 
operation  that  occupies  a  week.  ....  In  a  month,  I  should  think, 
everything  will  be  finished,  and  then,  returning  through  London,  .... 
I  shall  make  all  haste  to  Edinburgh 

To  MB.  ELISHA  TICKNOR. 

PARIS,  December  22,  1818. 

Yours  of  the  16th -29th  October,  my  dear  father,  arrived  since  I 
last  wrote  you,  and,  what  is  better,  one  from  Savage  of  November  9, 
both  of  which  speak  of  great  improvement  in  my  mother's  health. 
They  have,  therefore,  removed  a  great  load  from  my  fears,  and  I  feel 
now  as  if  I  had  once  more  the  free  exercise  of  my  faculties. 

I  have  received  the  necessary  permission  at  the  king's  library,  and 
am  in  full  operation  among  its  great  treasures.  I  have,  besides, 
made  the  acquaintance  of  Moratin,  an  exiled  Spaniard,  who  is  thor 
oughly  familiar  with  Spanish  literary  history,  and  who  gives  me  three 
or  four  hours  together  whenever  I  ask  it,  so  that  I  have  all  possible 
direction  and  assistance  in  this.  In  Portuguese  I  have  M.  de  Souza, 
who  is  the  learned  editor  and  generous  publisher  of  that  magnificent 
edition  of  Camoens,  of  which  he  sent  a  copy  to  Harvard  College  li 
brary.  With  these  two,  and  the  means  they  have  given  me,  I  have 
been  so  occupied  for  several  days,  that  I  have  not  been  able  to  do  any 
thing  with  Reynouard  and  the  Provencal ;  but  as  soon  as  I  have  fin 
ished  my  Spanish  and  Portuguese  researches,  I  shall  begin  here. 

It  is  a  melancholy  fact,  which  I  am  sure  will  not  a  little  strike  you, 
that,  after  having  been  four  months  at  Madrid  and  one  at  Lisbon, 
besides  my  journeys  to  the  great  cities  of  Andalusia,  I  should  be  at 
last  obliged  to  come  back  to  Paris,  to  find  books  and  means  neither 
Spain  nor  Portugal  would  afford  me.  But  so  it  is,  and  I  have  at  this 
moment  on  my  table  six  volumes,  and  shall,  before  I  leave  Paris,  have 
many  more,  which  I  sought  in  vain  in  the  libraries  of  the  capital,  of 
Seville,  and  Granada  ;  and  yet,  so  unequally  are  the  treasures  of  these 
languages  distributed,  that  the  better  half  is  still  wanting  in  Paris, 
where  the  rarest  is  to  be  found. 


JE.  27.]  PARISIAN  SOCIETY.  253 

JOURNAL. 

PARIS,  December  10, 1818,  to  January  12, 1819.*  —  The  dinner-hour 
at  Paris  is  six  o'clock  or  half  past  six.  I  always  dined  in  company, 
generally  either  at  Count  Pastoret's,  at  the  Due  de  Duras',  at  the 
Count  de  Ste.  Aulaire's,  or,  if  I  had  no  special  engagement,  at  the  Due 
de  Broglie's,  on  whose  table  I  always  had  a  plate.  Dinner  is  not  so 
solemn  an  affair  at  Paris  as  it  is  almost  everywhere  else.  It  is  soon 
over,  you  come  out  into  the  salon,  take  coffee  and  talk,  and  by  nine 
o'clock  you  separate.  Half  an  hour  later  the  soirees  begin.  They  are 
the  most  rational  form  of  society  I  have  yet  seen,  but  are  here  pushed 
to  excess.  Those  who  are  known  and  distinguished  so  much  as  to  be 
able  to  draw  a  circle  about  them,  take  one  or  two  evenings  in  each 
week  and  stay  at  home  to  receive,  with  very  little  ceremony,  all  whom 
they  choose  to  invite  to  visit  them.  There  are,  therefore,  a  great 
number  of  these  parties,  and  often,  of  course,  several  fall  on  the  same 
night.  A  person  who  has  an  extensive  acquaintance  will  make  several 
visits  of  this  sort  every  evening,  ....  and  that  he  is  in  fact  obliged  to 
do  it  is  its  only  objection  ;  for  if  it  were  possible  to  take  just  as  much 
of  it  as  you  like  and  no  more,  I  do  not  know  that  a  system  of  social 
intercourse  could  be  carried  to  greater  perfection  than  this  is  in 

France You  come  in  without  ceremony,  talk  as  long  as  you  find 

persons  you  like,  and  go  away  without  taking  leave,  to  repeat  the 

same  process  in  another  salon The  company  is  very  various,  but 

it  should  be  remembered,  to  the  credit  of  French  manners,  that  men  of 
letters  are  much  sought  in  it.  I  was  never  anywhere  that  I  did  not 
meet  them,  and  under  circumstances  where  nothing  but  their  literary 

merit  could  have  given  them  a  place All,  however,  is  not  on  the 

bright  side Almost  everybody  who  comes  to  these  salons  comes 

to  say  a  few  brilliant  things,  get  a  reputation  for  esprit,  —  the  god  who 
serves  for  Penates  in  French  houses,  —  and  then  hasten  away  to  an 
other  coterie  to  produce  the  same  effect.  This  is  certainly  the  general 
tone  of  these  societies ;  it  is  brilliant,  graceful,  superficial,  and  hol 
low 

I  had  a  specimen  of  the  varieties  of  French  society,  and  at  a  very- 
curious  and  interesting  moment,  for  it  was  just  as  the  revolution 
took  place  in  the  Ministry,  by  which  the  Duke  de  Richelieu  was 

turned  out,  and  Count  Decazes  put  in The  most  genuine 

and  unmingled  ultra  society  I  met,  was  at  the  Marchioness  de 
Louvois'.  She  is  an  old  lady  of  sixty-five,  who  emigrated  in  1789, 

*  Summary  such  as  he  made  at  the  end  of  his  visits  in  other  cities. 


254  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1818. 

and  returned  in  1814  ;  and  her  brother,  the  present  Bishop  of  Amiens, 
who  was  then  French  Minister  at  Venice,  retreated  at  the  same  time 
to  the  upper  part  of  Germany,  and  continued  an  exile  as  long  as  the 
family  he  served.  I  never  went  there  that  the  old  lady  did  not  read 
me  a  good  lecture  about  republicanism  ;  and  if  it  had  not  been  for 
the  mild,  equal  good  sense  of  the  Bishop,  I  should  certainly  have 
suffered  a  little  in  my  temper  from  her  attacks,  supported  by  .a 
corps  of  petits  Marquis  de  1'ancien  regime,  who  were  always  of  her 
coterie 

The  Duchess  de  Duras'  society  was  ultra  too,  but  ultra  of  a  very 
different  sort.  It  was  composed  of  much  that  is  distinguished  in  the 
present  management  of  affairs,  to  which  she  has  been  able  to  add 
many  men  of  letters  without  distinction  of  party.  This  is  the  result 
of  her  personal  character.  She  is  now  about  thirty-eight  years  old, 
not  beautiful,  but  with  a  striking  and  animated  physiognomy,  elegant 
manners,  and  a  power  in  conversation  which  has  no  rival  in  France 
since  the  death  of  Mad.  de  Stae'l.  Her  natural  talents  are  of  a  high 
order,  and  she  has  read  a  great  deal ;  but  it  is  her  enthusiasm,  her 
simplicity  and  earnestness,  and  the  graceful  contributions  she  levies 
upon  her  knowledge  to  give  effect  to  her  conversation,  that  impart  to 
it  the  peculiar  charm  which  I  have  seen  operate  like  a  spell,  on  char 
acters  as  different  as  those  of  Chateaubriand,  Humboldt,  and  Talley 
rand.  I  liked  her  very  much,  and  went  to  her  hotel  often,  in  fact 
sometimes  every  day.  On  Sundays  I  dined  there.  Chateaubriand, 
Humboldt,  and  Alexis  de  Noailles  were  more  than  once  of  the  party  ; 
and  the  conversation  was  amusing,  and  once  extremely  interesting, 
from  the  agony  of  political  feeling,  just  at  the  moment  when  the 
king  deserted  them,  and  gave  himself  up  to  Mons.  Decazes.  On 
Tuesday  night  she  received  at  home,  and  all  the  world  came,  .... 
and  I  think,  except  the  politics,  it  was  as  interesting  a  society  as 
could  well  be  collected.  On  Saturday  night,  as  wife  of  the  first 
Gentleman  of  the  Bedchamber,  she  went  to  the  Tuileries  and  re 
ceived  there,  or,  as  it  is  technically  called,  did  the  honors  of  the 

Palace I  think  I  have  never  seen  the  honors  of  a  large  circle 

done  with  such  elegance  and  grace,  with  such  kind  and  attentive 
politeness,  as  Mad.  de  Duras  used  to  show  in  this  brilliant  assembly. 

But  it  was  neither  in  the  Court  circle  at  the  Tuileries,  nor  in  her 
own  salon  on  Tuesdays,  nor  even  at  her  Sunday  dinners,  that  Mad. 
de  Duras  was  to  be  seen  in  the  character  which  those  who  most  like 
and  best  understand  her  thought  the  most  interesting.  Once  when 
I  dined  with  her  entirely  alone,  except  her  youngest  daughter,  and 


M.  27.]  MADAME  DE  PASTORET.  255 

once  when  nobody  but  De  Humboldt  was  there,  I  was  positively 
bewitched  with  her  conversation.  One  evening  she  made  a  delight 
ful  party  for  the  Duchess  of  Devonshire,  of  only  five  or  six  persons, 
—  my  old  friend  the  Viscount  de  Senonnes,  Humboldt,  Forbin,  and 
two  or  three  ladies  ;  and  Chateaubriand  read  a  little  romance  on  the 
Zegri  and  Abencerrages  of  Granada,  full  of  descriptions  glowing  with 
poetry,  like  those  of  the  environs  of  Naples  in  "  The  Martyrs."  .... 
Between  four  and  six  o'clock  every  day  her  door  was  open  to  a  few 
persons,  and  this  was  the  time  all  most  liked  to  see  her.*  .... 

The  Countess  Pastoret's  was,  too,  an  ultra  house,  for  her  husband 
is  entirely  of  the  Bourbon  party,  and  takes  a  good  deal  of  interest  in 
politics  ;  but,  in  general,  the  political  tone  did  not  prevail,  for  he  is  a 

member  of  the  Institute,  and  a  man  of  considerable  learning 

Mad.  de  Pastoret  asked  me  to  three  little  dinners,  and  once,  when 
Camille  Jourdain,  Cuvier,  and  La  Place  were  there.  These  parties 
were  extremely  simple,  rational,  and  pleasant.  This,  in  fact,  is  ex 
actly  Mad.  de  Pastoret's  character.  She  has  natural  talent,  and  has 
cultivated  herself  highly I  have  seldom  seen  a  better  bal 
anced  mind,  or  feelings  more  justly  regulated I  have  talked 

with  many  persons  who  have  passed  through  the  horrors  of  the  Rev 
olution,  but  no  descriptions  I  have  received  have  produced  such  an 
effect  on  my  feelings,  as  those  given  by  Mad.  de  Pastoret's  simple  and 
unpretending,  but  touching  eloquence.  It  reminded  me  of  La  Roche 

Jacquelin Since  the  death  of  her  son,  Mad.  de  Pastoret  has 

never  been  into  the  world,  and  therefore  is  at  home  every  evening, 
and  sees  only  those  who  will  not  exact  a  formal  return  of  visit  for 
visit.  Among  those  who  came  there  most  frequently  was  the  old 
Due  de  Crillon,  the  representative  of  Henry  IV.'s  Crillon,  .... 
and  such  men  as  Cuvier  and  La  Place,  who,  like  Count  Pastoret  him 
self,  belong,  by  their  age  and  character,  to  an  elder  state  of  society, 
and  by  their  political  situation  take  a  deep  interest  in  the  affairs  of 
the  day. 

One  of  the  stories  that  Mad.  de  Pastoret  told  me  was  indeed  touch- 
ing.t  ....  During  the  worst  period  of  the  Revolution,  she  lived  — 
as  she  did  when  I  knew  her,  and  I  believe  as  she  always  did  —  in  a 
luxurious  hotel  on  the  Place  Louis  XV.  She  was,  in  fact,  for  some 

*  The  Duchess  de  Duras  published  two  graceful  stories,  "Ourika,"  and 
"Edouard,"  and  printed  for  private  distribution  a  collection  of  prayers  and 
devout  meditations. 

t  This  paragraph  was  written  out  later  by  Mr.  Ticknor,  and  added  to  the 
Journal. 


256  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1818. 

time  confined  there,  —  with  the  guillotine  in  the  middle  of  it,  —  and 
not  allowed  to  go  out  of  her  house,  any  more  than  the  rest  of  her 
family,  who  were  all  royalists.  Suddenly,  her  husband  was  arrested 
and  imprisoned.  The  front  of  the  house  was  entirely  closed  up,  and 
light,  and,  as  far  as  possible,  sound,  were  excluded.  But  there  was  no 
room  to  which  the  grating,  rattling  sound  of  the  axe,  as  it  fell,  did 
not  more  or  less  penetrate,  or  where  the  shouts  of  the  cruel  multitude 
were  not  heard,  as,  now  and  then,  though  rarely,  they  expressed 
their  triumphant  satisfaction  at  the  death  of  some  peculiarly  obnox 
ious  victim.  The  dreadful  thing  to  Mad.  de  Pastoret  was  that,  being 
unable  to  get  any  information  whatever  concerning  her  husband,  the 
axe  never  fell  but  she  asked  herself  whether  it  might  not  have  been 
for  him.  On  one  occasion  she  obtained  special  permission  to  go  out, 
under  surveillance,  and  she  employed  it  to  visit  the  foreign  ministers, 
—  some  of  whom  she  knew,  —  and  obtain  their  intercession  for  her 
husband.  The  person  who  received  her  with  the  most  kindness  was 
the  American  Minister,  Mr.  Morris.  Mons.  Pastoret  afterwards  escaped 
from  France,  and  was  for  some  time  in  exile.  He  has  since  been 
Chancellor  of  France,  and  has  published  law-books  of  great  merit. 

The  Countess  de  Ste.  Aulaire's  salon  was  the  place  of  meeting  for 
the  Doctrinaires,  Decazes'  party,  which  triumphed  while  I  was  in 
Paris,  and  to  whose  triumph  Mad.  de  Ste.  Aulaire  contributed  uot  a 
little.  She  is  a  beautiful  woman,  with  an  elegant  mind,  and  much 
practical  talent ;  and  her  husband,  a  relation  of  Decazes,  is  one  of  the 
powerful  men  of  their  party,  and  a  leading  member  in  the  Chamber 
of  Deputies.  Their  house  used  to  be  called  "  the  Ministry,"  and  Mad. 
de  Ste.  Aulaire's  parties,  "  the  ministerial  parties  " ;  for  Decazes  came 
occasionally,  and  Barante,  Guizot,  etc.,  were  there  nearly  every  Tues 
day  night ;  and  as  this  convocation  happened  on  one  of  the  evenings 
of  Mad.  de  Duras',  I  two  or  three  times  witnessed  singular  contrasts 
on  going  from  one  to  the  other,  just  as  the  great  question  of  the 
change  of  Ministry,  which  lasted  above  a  fortnight,  was  in  the  agony 
of  agitation 

The  Princess  Aldobrandini  *  was  at  home  every  night.  She  is  not 
as  beautiful  as  she  was  when  I  knew  her  in  Italy,  but  she  has  lost 
none  of  her  vivacity,  and  talks  still  as  fast  as  ever.  A  good  many 
Italians  came  to  her  hotel,  and  among  them  my  old  friend,  Count 
Confalonieri  of  Milan  ;  but  the  old  Due  de  la  Rochefoucauld,  her 
grandfather,  was  the  most  amusing  and  interesting  of  all  the  persons 
I  met  there.  It  is  the  same  who  was  in  America,  and  he  still  retains 

*  Later,  Princess  Borghese. 


M.  27.]  HUMBOLDT.  257 

the  hardy,  vigorous,  independent  mind  that  must  always  have  dis 
tinguished  one  who  has  passed  without  loss  of  honor  through  so 
many  revolutions,  and  is  still  as  good-humored  and  kind  as  all  his 
friends  have  uniformly  found  him 

The  Duchess  de  Grammont  had  a  soiree  for  the  Liberals  every 
Saturday  night,  to  which  I  always  went  before  going  to  the  Tuileries, 
in  order  to  see  and  hear  both  sides  together.  The  persons  who  came 
to  it  were  merely  a  part  of  those  who  went  to  Mad.  de  Broglie's,  and 
it  was  generally  rather  dull 

I  went  more  frequently  to  the  Duchess  de  Broglie's  than  anywhere 
else.  She  has  the  same  tender,  affectionate  character  she  had  when  I 
saw  her  watching  over  her  mother's  failing  health,  the  same  open- 
hearted  frankness,  and  the  same  fearless  independence  of  the  world 
and  its  fashions,  that  has  always  distinguished  her.  ....  I  have  sel 
dom  seen  any  one  with  deeper  and  more  sincere  feelings  of  tenderness 
and  affection,  and  never  a  Frenchwoman  with  so  strong  religious 
feelings  ;  and  when  to  this  is  added  great  simplicity  and  frankness, 
not  a  little  personal  beauty,  and  an  independent,  original  way  of 
thinking,  I  have  described  one  who  would  produce  a  considerable 
effect  in  any  society.  In  her  own  she  is  sincerely  loved  and  ad 
mired 

These  were  the  houses  to  which  I  went  most  frequently,  and  the 

persons  I  best  knew  at  Paris,  excepting  my  countrymen 

Humboldt,  I  think,  I  saw,  either  by  accident  or  otherwise,  nearly 
every  day,  and  of  all  the  men  I  have  known,  he  is,  in  some  respects, 
the  most  remarkable  ;  the  man  on  whom  talent  and  knowledge  have 
produced  their  best  and  most  generous  effects 

The  last  day  I  was  in  Paris,  Mad.  de  Broglie  made  a  little  dinner 
party  for  me,  to  which  she  asked  Humboldt,  Forbin,  De  Pradt,* 
Lafayette,  and  two  or  three  other  persons,  whom  I  was  very  glad 
to  see  before  leaving  Paris.  It  happened  too  to  be  Monday  night, 
and  therefore  I  passed  the  remainder  of  the  evening  m  her  salon, 
upon  which  my  latest  recollections  of  Paris  rest,  for  I  left  her  hotel 
about  one  o'clock,  and  a  very  short  time  afterwards  was  on,  the  road 
to  Calais.t 

*  The  Abbe"  de  Pradt,  who,  as  Mr.  Tieknor  elsewhere  says,  "of  all  others  in 
French  society,  is  said  to  have  the  most  esprit  in  conversation." 

t  Among  the  smaller  souvenirs  of  this  visit  in  Paris  are  notes  from  the  Dtve 
de  Broglie  and  from  Humboldt  to  Mr.  Tieknor,  which  have  a  pleasant  flavor 
and  hints  of  character.  M.  de  Broglie  says  :  — 

"  Je  suis  au  de"sespoir,  mon  cher  federalists,  de  vous  avoir  encore  une  fois  man- 


258  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1818. 

The  following  anecdotes  were  written  down  later  by  Mr.  Tick- 
nor,  and  placed  by  him  in  the  Journal  according  to  the  date  :  — 

I  have  spoken  of  Prince  Talleyrand,  whom  I  saw  occasionally  in 
Paris  this  winter  (1818  -  19),  and  of  whom  I  have  given  my  general 
impressions.*  But  I  met  him  twice,  under  circumstances  which 
afforded  me  such  intimations  of  his  character,  that  I  think  it  worth 
while  to  record  them  long  afterwards,  although  I  failed  at  the  time 
to  write  out  my  notes,  as  I  often  did  during  my  hurried  life  in  Paris, 
at  that  period.  ' 

On  both  the  occasions  referred  to,  I  met  Mons.  de  Talleyrand  at  the 
hotel  of  the  Duchess  de  Duras,  to  whom  I  was  presented  by  a  letter 
from  the  Due  Adrien  de  Montmorency  Laval,  French  ambassador  in 
Madrid,  in  such  a  way  that,  from  the  first,  she  received  me  with  great 
kindness  and  permitted  me  to  visit  her  familiarly.  She  received  a 
great  deal  of  company,  but  her  favorite  time  for  seeing  her  friends 
without  ceremony  was  between  four  and  six,  —  what  she  called  "  mes 

que  de  parole.  Ce  n'est  pas  ma  faute.  J'ai  etc  ce  matin,  visiter  une  prison  hors 
de  Paris ;  je  comptais  etre  revenu  a  temps;  et  les  heures  nous  ont  gagnes  au 
point,  que  j'arrive  en  ce  moment.  Venez  nous  voir  ce  soir.  Nous  reprendrons 
jour  et  heure.  Ne  soyez  pas  trop  en  colere.  Tout  a  vous. 

"V.  BROGUE.    5h.  £." 

M.  de  Humboldt  writes  thus :  — 

"  Je  vais  reiterer  une  demande  bien  indiscrete,  monsieur.  J'etais  venu  ce 
matin  vous  offrir  mes  amities,  et  vous  prier,  de  vouloir  bien  vous  charger  de 
quelques  feuilles  imprimees,  pour  la  maison  de  Sir  Joseph  Banks.  Le  celebre 
botaniste  M.  Brown,  qui  a  etc  a  la  Nouvelle  Hollande,  et  qui  est  le  Bibliothecaire 
de  Mr.  Banks,  me  demande  avec  instance,  le  4""  volume  de  mes  Nova  Genera 
Plantanim,  qui  renferme  les  Composees  que  nous  avons  decouvertes,  M.  Bonjiland 
et  moi,  et  que  Mr.  Kunth  a  decrites.  Je  vous  supplie  en  grace  de  me  renvoyer 
le  pacquet,  si  vous  le  trouvez  trop  volumineux.  Mille  tendres  amities. 

"Ce  Lundi.  A.  HUMBOLDT. 

"  J'espere  vous  voir  ce  soir,  chez  le  D.  de  Broglie.  Veuillez  bien  en  tout  cas, 
me  marquer  en  deux  lignes  si  vous  pouvez  vous  charger  du  paquet." 

*  The  passage  in  which  Mr.  Ticknor  had  already  given  his  impression  of 
Talleyrand  is  this  :  "  His  recollection  of  all  he  had  seen  and  of  all  the  persons 
he  had  known  in  America  seemed  as  distinct  as  if  he  had  left  the  country  only 
a  few  days  since ;  and  he  spoke  of  them  with  a  fresh  and  living  interest  that 
continually  surprised  me.  I  remarked,  however,  that  if  I  spoke,  in  reply  to 
him,  of  anything  that  had  happened  since  to  those  persons,  or  of  any  change  in 
the  circumstances  that  were  still  so  familiar  to  his  thoughts,  it  made  not  the 
slightest  impression  upon  him.  It  was  only  his  own  recollections  that  inter 
ested  him,  and  the  persons  he  had  known  then  occupied  him  only  as  a  part  of 
himself,  so  that  it  was  indifferent  to  him  whether  they  were  now  dead  or  alive." 


M.  27.]  TALLEYRAND. 


petites  cinq  heures,"  —  the  last  thing,  in  fact,  before  dinner,  when  her 
reception-room  was  no  longer  the  salon  for  formal  morning  calls,  but 
a  charming  library,  just  lighted  for  the  early  darkness  of  the  season. 
I  went  oftenest  at  this  hour,  and  generally  found  one  or  two  friends 
with  her. 

One  evening,  as  I  entered,  I  saw  a  single  elderly  gentleman  stand 
ing  with  his  back  to  the  fire,  dressed  in  a  long  gray  surtout  coat,  but 
toned  quite  up  to  his  throat,  and  marked  only  with  the  red  ribbon  of 
the  Legion  of  Honor,  which  ornamented  the  buttonholes  of  so  many 
of  the  persons  met  in  good  society,  that  it  constituted  no  distinction 
worth  notice.  He  had  on  a  heavy,  high,  white  cravat,  concealing  a 
good  deal  of  the  lower  part  of  his  face,  and  his  hair  seemed  brought 
down  with  powder  and  pomatum  so  as  to  hide  his  forehead  and  tem 
ples.  In  short,  hardly  anything  of  his  features  could  be  seen  that  it 
was  easy  to  cover,  and  what  I  saw  attracted  at  first  little  of  my  atten 
tion.  He  stood  there  kicking  the  fire-fender.  I  observed,  however, 
that  he  was  in  earnest  conversation  with  Mad.  de  Duras  ;  that  she 
called  him  •"  Mon  Prince  "  ;  and  that  the  tones  of  both  of  them,  and 
especially  those  of  the  lady,  were  a  little  too  eager  to  be  entirely 
pleasant,  though  quite  well  bred. 

I  therefore  took  up  a  pamphlet  and  seemed  to  read  ;  but  I  listened, 
as  they  were  talking  on  a  subject  of  political  and  legal  notoriety,  with 
which  society  and  the  journals  were  then  ringing.  It  was,  whether, 
under  a  phrase  in  the  "  Charte,"  or  Constitution,  "  La  religion  Romaine 
Catholique  est  la  religion  de  1'fitat,"  Protestants  were  required  on 
days  of  public  religious  ceremony,  like  the  Procession  of  the  Corpus 
Christi,  to  hang  out  tapestry  before  their  houses,  or  give  other  outward 
signs  of  respectful  observance.  The  more  earnest  Catholics  main 
tained  that  they  were  so  required  ;  the  Protestants  denied  it,  and  had 
just  prevailed,  on  the  highest  appeal  in  the  courts  of  law.  Mad.  de 
Duras  was  displeased  with  this  decision,  and  was  maintaining  her 
point  with  not  a  little  brilliancy  ;  the  gentleman  in  gray  answering 
her  with  wit,  but  not  as  if  he  wanted  to  discuss  the  matter.  But  at 
last  it  seemed  to  me  that  he  became  a  little  piqued  with  some  of  her 
sharp  sallies,  and  said,  rather  suddenly  and  in  a  different  tone,  "  But 
do  you  know,  Mad.  de  Duras,  who  advised  "  —  I  think  he  said  "  Beug- 
not "  —  "  to  put  those  words  into  the  Charte  ? "  "  No,  I  'do  not,"  she 
replied,  "  but  they  are  excellent  words,  whoever  it  was."  "  Eh  Men," 
he  retorted,  instantly,  "  c'etait  moi."  "  I  am  glad,"  she  replied,  with 
equal  promptness,  and  laughing,  not  altogether  agreeably,  "  that  you 
advised  such  good  words,  and  I  thank  you  for  them."  "  But  do  you 


260  LIFE  OF  GEOEGE  TICKNOR.  [1818. 

know  why  I  advised  them  ? "  "  No,"  she  said,  "  but  I  am  sure  you  can 
have  had  only  a  good  reason  for  so  good  a  thing."  "  Well,"  he  contin 
ued,  "  I  suggested  those  words  because  they  did  not  mean  anything  at 
all,  —  parcequ'ils  ne  signifiaient  rien  du  tout." 

Mad.  de  Duras  replied  with  something  approaching  to  asperity,  and 
the  conversation  went  on  for  some  little  time  in  this  tone,  until,  find 
ing  it,  I  suppose,  more  agreeable  to  talk  about  something  else,  she 
turned  to  me  in  a  rather  decisive  manner,  and  said,  "  You  have  no 
troubles  of  this  sort  in  America  ;  you  have  no  state  religion."  I 
answered,  without  entering  into  the  matter,  that  of  course  we  had 
not ;  but  the  gentleman  in  gray  —  apparently  as  glad  to  change  the 
subject  as  the  lady  was  —  immediately  began  to  talk  about  the  United 
States,  and  to  ask  questions.  I  had  not  the  smallest  suspicion  who  he 
might  be,  but  I  soon  perceived  that  he  had  been  himself  in  America. 
I  therefore  took  the  liberty  to  ask  him  what  parts  of  the  country  he 
had  visited.  He  told  me  that  he  had  been  in  Philadelphia,  in  Wash 
ington's  time  ;  and  on  my  soon  replying  that  I  was  from  Boston,  he 
said  that  he  had  been  there  too,  and  praised  America  generally.  Mad. 
de  Duras  here  interrupted  him  by  saying,  "  It  was  there  I  first  saw 
you,  when  I  was  a  little  girl,  my  mother  and  I  emigrees.  We  met 
you  at  a  public  ball  in  Philadelphia."  "  Oui,"  said  the  gentleman  in 
gray,  going  right  on  with  his  own  thoughts,  "  c'est  un  pays  remarqua- 
ble,  mais  leur  luxe,  leur  luxe  est  aflreux,"  comparing  it,  no  doubt,  with 
the  tasteful  and  dainty  luxury  to  which  he  had  been  accustomed  in 
France,  before  he  fled  from  the  Revolution,  and  amidst  which  he  had 
everywhere  lived  since  his  return. 

I  now  became  very  curious  to  know  who  he  was,  and  asked  him 
what  other  parts  of  the  United  States  he  had  visited.  He  told  me  he 
had  been  in  New  York,  and  that,  at  one  time,  he  went  as  far  east  as 
Portland.  I  immediately  suspected  who  he  was,  for  I  knew  that 
M.  de  Talleyrand  had  been  so  far  east,  and  no  farther.  I  questioned 
him,  therefore,  about  Boston.  He  seemed  to  have  some  recollection 
of  it  ;  said  he  knew  a  very  intelligent  family  there,  he  did  not  re 
member  their  names,  but  there  was  a  daughter  in  it  whose  name  was 
"  Barbe  "  [Barbara],  one  of  the  handsomest  creatures  he  ever  saw.  I 
knew  in  an  instant  that  it  was  Barbara  Higginson,  whom  I  had  known 
as  Mrs.  S.  G.  Perkins  quite  intimately,  when  she  was  the  mother 
of  half  a  dozen  children';  with  whom  I  had  crossed  the  Atlantic  in 
1815,  and  who  had  often  told  me  of  her  acquaintance  with  Talleyrand, 
and  that  he  talked  English  with  her  who  knew  no  French  at  all, 
when  he  refused  to  talk  it  in  society  generally.  But  he  no  longer 


JS.  27.]  HAMILTON.  261 

cared  anything  about  her  or  about  anybody  in  Boston,  except  as  a 
part  of  his  own  recollections  and  life. 

In  this  way  we  continued  to  talk  for  some  time,  until,  at  last,  Mad. 
de  Duras  turned  and  said,  "  Messieurs,  you  talk  so  much  about  indi 
viduals  that  I  think  you  ought  to  know  each  other,"  and  presented 
me  without  further  words  to  Prince  Talleyrand.  Everything,  of  course, 
now  became  easy  and  simple.  I  asked  him  about  the  United  States, 
concerning  which  I  thought  he  did  not  like  to  talk,  but  he  said, 
"  There  is  a  great  deal  to  be  learnt  there,  j'y  ai  appris  assez,  moi- 
meine  "  ;  and  then,  turning  to  Mad.  de  Duras,  he  said,  laughing,  "  If 
Dino  [his  nephew]  would  go  there,  he  would  learn  more  than  he  does 
every  night  at  the  opera."  I  asked  him  about  Washington's  appear 
ance,  and  he  spoke  of  him  very  respectfully  but  very  coldly,  which  I 
easily  accounted  for,  because  it  was  well  known  that  Washington  had 
told  Hamilton  that  he  could  not  receive  Talleyrand  at  his  levees,  and 
Pichon  had  told  me,  in  1817,  that  he  knew  Talleyrand  had  never  for 
given  it.* 

But  this  naturally  brought  Hamilton  into  his  thoughts,  and  of  him 
he  spoke  willingly,  freely,  and  with  great  admiration.  In  the  course 
of  his  remarks,  he  said  that  he  had  known,  during  his  life,  many  of 
the  more  marked  men  of  his  time,  but  that  he  had  never,  on  the 
whole,  known  one  equal  to  Hamilton.  I  was  much  surprised,  as  well 
as  gratified,  by  the  remark  ;  but  still  feeling  that,  as  an  American,  I 
was,  in  some  sort,  a  party  concerned  by  patriotism  in  the  compliment, 
I  answered,  —  with  a  little  reserve,  perhaps  with  a  little  modesty,  — 
that  the  great  military  commanders  and  the  great  statesmen  of  Europe 
had  dealt  with  much  larger  masses  of  men,  and  much  wider  interests 
than  Hamilton  ever  had.  "  Mais,  monsieur,"  the  Prince  instantly  re 
plied,  "  Hamilton  avait  devine  1'Europe."  After  this,  he  spoke  almost 
inevitably  of  Burr,  whom  he  had  also  known  in  America,  but  whom  he 
did  not  rate,  intellectually,  so  high  as  I  think  most  persons  who  knew 
him  have  done.  He  said,  that  when  Burr  came  to  Europe,  he  wished 
to  induce  the  French  government  to  be  concerned  in  a  project  for  dis 
membering  the  United  States,  which  he  had  earlier  entertained. 
"  But,"  Talleyrand  said,  "  I  would  have  nothing  to  do  with  him.  I 

*  Among  the  Writings  of  Washington,  published  in  1838,  by  Jared  Sparks, 
appears  (Vol.  X.  p.  411)  a  letter  to  Alexander  Hamilton,  dated  May  6, 1794,  and 
marked  Private,  in  which  the  President  gives  his  reasons  for  not  receiving  M. 
Talleyrand-Perigord ;  and  in  an  accompanying  foot-note  a  letter  is  given  from 
Lord  Lansdowne,  introducing  Talleyrand  to  General  Washington.  The  auto 
graph  letter  of  Washington  to  Hamilton  came  into  Mr.  Ticknor's  possession 
through  Mr.  Sparks. 


262  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOB.  [1819. 

hated  the  man  who  had  murdered  Hamilton."  "  Assassin^"  was  the 
word  he  used.  This  may  have  been  his  sole  motive,  though  he  had 
little  influence,  I  suppose,  at  that  time,  and  it  is  not  very  likely.  But, 
at  any  rate,  he  suffered  Burr  to  fall  into  poverty  in  Paris  and  come 
home  a  beggar,  arriving  at  Boston,  where  he  was  relieved,  but  not 
visited,  by  Mr.  Jonathan  Mason. 

The  conversation  now  became  very  various  and  interesting,  and 
was  continued  until  near  dinner-time.  Among  other  things,  Mad.  de 
Duras  gave  an  account  of  her  own  escape  and  her  mother's  from  Bor 
deaux  for  the  United  States,  amidst  the  terrors  of  the  Revolution  ;  and 
finding  that  I  was  acquainted  with  Captain  Forbes,  who  had  materially 
assisted  them  to  get  on  board  an  American  vessel  in  the  night,  she 
charged  me  with  many  messages  for  him,  and  subsequently  added  a 
note  of  acknowledgment,  which  I  delivered  to  its  address  personally 
the  following  summer  on  Milton  Hill.  Captain  Forbes  told  me  that 
he  had  already  received  other  acknowledgments  from  her  and  her 
mother  ;  her  father,  General  Kersaint,  having  perished  by  the  guillo 
tine  in  the  days  of  Terror. 

But,  at  last,  it  was  time  to  go,  and  we  went,  the  Prince  first  and 
I  afterwards,  not  thinking  to  see  him  again.  However,  I  did  see  him 
several  times,  but  only  once  when  the  conversation  was  especially 
interesting,  and  this  was  again  in  the  library  of  Mad.  de  Duras,  the 
last  time  I  saw  her,  and  just  as  I  was  leaving  Paris  for  London.  It 
was  at  the  moment  when  there  had  been  for  several  days  a  "  crise,"  as 
it  was  called,  or  a  sort  of  suspension  of  efficiency  in  the  government, 
from  the  resignation  of  the  Due  de  Richelieu,  and  the  difficulty  of 
arranging  a  new  Ministry.  I  had  not  been  in  the  room  five  minutes 
before  I  perceived  that,  like  all  the  rest  of  the  world,  Prince  Talley 
rand  and  Mad.  de  Duras  were  talking  about  the  anxieties  of  the  time, 
and  that  the  Viscount  de  Senonnes  was  there,  listening.  I  joined  Mons. 
de  Senonnes,  whom  I  knew  very  well,  and  we  both  said  as  nearly 
nothing  as  possible.  Indeed,  there  was  nothing  for  anybody  else  to 
say.  The  Prince  had  all  the  talk,  or  all  but  the  whole  of  it*  to  him 
self,  and  he  was  much  in  earnest  in  what  he  said  ;  willing,  too,  I 
suppose,  that  it  should  be  heard  and  his  opinions  known.  His  view 
of  things  seemed  the  most  sombre.  Everything  was  threatening.  No 
sufficient  Ministry  could  be  formed.  The  king  had  nobody  to  depend 
upon.  In  short,  everything  was  as  dark  as  possible.  Mad.  de  Duras 
said  very  little.  She  was,  as  everybody  knewj  an  important  personage 
in  the  management  of  affairs  at  the  Palace,  and  was  now  evidently 
made  unhappy  by  the  view  the  Prince  gave  of  the  immediate  future, 


JSL  27.]  RETURN  TO  ENGLAND.  263 

which  certainly  was  gloomy  enough.  At  last  he  rose  to  go,  but  con 
tinued  to  talk  in  the  same  disagreeable  strain  as  he  moved  very  slowly 
towards  the  door  ;  and  then,  at  the  instant  he  went  out  of  the  room, 
said,  in  a  peculiar  tone  of  voice,  "  Et,  cependant,  Madame  de  Doras, 
il  y  a  un  petit  moyen,  si  Ton  savait  s'en  servir,"  *  and  disappeared, 
waiting  no  reply.  An  awkward  silence  of  a  moment  followed,  and 
then,  making  sincerely  grateful  adieus  and  acknowledgments  to  Mad. 
de  Duras,  I  followed  him. 

But  I  had  not  fairly  got  into  my  carriage,  in  the  court-yard,  before 
M.  de  Senonnes  overtook  me,  and  said  that  Mad.  de  Duras  would  be 
obliged  to  me  if  I  would  return  to  her  for  a  moment  in  the  library. 
Of  course  I  went,  and  as  soon  as  I  had  shut  the  door,  she  said,  "  You 
must  be  aware  of  the  meaning  of  the  extraordinary  conversation  you 
have  just  heard,  and  especially  of  the  Prince's  last  words  ;  and  I  hope 
you  will  do  me  the  favor  not  to  speak  of  it  while  you  remain  in 
France.  As  you  are  going  away  so  soon,  you  will  not,  I  trust,  feel 
it  much  of  a  sacrifice."  Of  course  I  gave  her  the  promise  and  kept  it, 
although  I  should  much  have  liked  to  tell  the  whole  conversation  at 
the  De  Broglies',  where  I  dined  with  Humboldt,  Lafayette,  and  De 
Pradt  the  same  evening,  and  who  would  have  enjoyed  it  prodigiously. 
But  the  first  house  at  which  I  dined  in  England  was  Lord  Holland's, 
where  I  met  Tierney,  Mackintosh,  and  some  other  of  the  leading 
Whigs,  to  whom  I  told  it  amidst  great  laughter.  Two  or  three  times 
afterwards,  when  I  met  Sir  James  Mackintosh,  he  spoke  of  Talleyrand, 
and  always  called  him  "  le  petit  moyen." 

JOURNAL. 

On  the  18th  of  January,  1819,  I  came  to  London  [from  Ramsgate], 
by  the  way  of  Canterbury,  getting  thus  a  view  of  the  agricultural 
prospects  in  the  county  of  Kent,  and  struck  for  the  third  time  with 
the  bustle  which,  from  so  far,  announces  the  traveller's  approach  to 
the  largest  and  most  active  capital  in  Europe 

I  went  to  see  the  kind  and  respectable  Sir  Joseph  Banks  several 
times,  and  renewed  my  acquaintance  with  the  Marquess  of  Lansdowne, 

passed  a  night  with  my  excellent  friend  Mr.  Vaughan,  etc I 

found  here,  too,  Count  Funchal,  ....  and  was  very  glad  to  know 
more  of  Count  Palmella,  whom  I  had  known  a  little  at  the  Marquis 
of  Marialva's,  and  who  is  certainly  an  accomplished  gentleman  and 

*  "And  yet,  Madame  de  Duras,  there  is  a  small  resource,  if  they  knew  how- 
to  make  use  of  it." 


264  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1819. 

scholar,  as  well  as  a  statesman.*  I  have  met  few  men  in  Europe  who 
have  so  satisfied  my  expectations  as  this  extraordinary  young  man, 
who,  at  the  age  of  about  thirty,  has  thus  risen  to  the  height  of  power, 
in  one  of  the  most  despotic  governments  in  the  world,  by  the  mere 
force  of  talent,  without  friends  or  intrigue.  I  dined  with  him  twice, 
once  quite  alone,  and  was  struck  with  his  various,  original,  and  grace 
ful  style  of  conversation.  I  have  now  become  so  weary  with  the 
perpetual  change  of  acquaintance,  that  I  generally  seek,  wherever  I 
go,  to  make  myself  as  familiar  as  I  can  in  one  house,  at  the  expense 

of  all  others The  one  to  which  I  went  the  most  frequently 

in  London,  and  where  I  spent  a  part  of  many  evenings,  was  Lord 
Holland's,  t  and  certainly,  for  an  elegant  literary  society,  I  have  seen 
nothing  better  in  Europe.  Lord  Holland  himself  is  a  good  scholar, 
and  a  pleasant  man  in  conversation ;  Sir  James  Mackintosh  was 
staying  in  his  house,  Sydney  Smith  and  Brougham  came  there  very 
often,  and  Heber  and  Frere,  Lord  Lansdowne,  Lord  Lauderdale, 
Lord  Auckland,  Lord  John  Russell,  etc.,  and  I  do  not  well  know 
how  dinners  and  evenings  could  be  more  pleasant.  There  was  no 
alloy  but  Lady  Holland,  whom  I  did  not  like,  ....  but  I  should 
have  been  very  foolish  if  I  had  suffered  this  to  prevent  my  enjoy 
ment,  when  to  avoid  it  I  had  only  to  talk  to  some  one  else.^I  Lord 
Holland  is  an  open-hearted  gentleman,  kind,  simple,  and  hospitable, 
a  scholar  with  few  prejudices,  and  making  no  pretensions,,  either  on 
the  score  of  his  rank,  his  fortune,  his  family,  his  culture,  or  anything 
else.  I  never  met  a  man  who  so  disarms  opposition  in  discussion,  as 
I  have  often  seen  him,  without  yielding  an  iota,  merely  by  the  unpre 
tending  simplicity  and  sincerity  of  his  manner.  He  is  said  to  resemble 
Mr.  Fox  in  his  face,  and  certainly  is  like  Mr.  Fox's  busts  ;  but  I 
should  think  there  was  more  mildness  in  his  physiognomy  than  I  can 
find  in  Mr.  Fox's  portraits. 

*  See  ante,  pp.  180  and  248.  Palmella  had  been  Portuguese  plenipotentiary 
at  the  Congress  of  Vienna,  and  afterwards  held  other  high  offices. 

t  Then  living  in  St.  James's  Square. 

J  Lady  Holland  was  polite  and  even  kind  in  after  years  to  Mr.  Ticknor,  who 
used  to  attribute  it  to  a  little  passage  of  arms  that  once  occurred  between  them. 
She  characteristically  remarked  to  him,  that  she  believed  New  England  was 
originally  colonized  by  convicts,  sent  over  from  the  mother  country.  Mr.  Ticknor 
replied  that  he  was  not  aware  of  it,  but  said  he  knew  that  some  of  the  Vassall 
family  —  ancestors  of  Lady  Holland  —  had  settled  early  in  Massachusetts,  where 
a  house  built  by  one  of  them  was  standing  in  Cambridge,  and  a  marble  monu 
ment  to  a  member  of  the  family  was  to  be  seen  in  King's  Chapel,  Boston.  Lady 
Holland  was,  for  a  moment,  surprised  into  silence  ;  then  questioned  him  about 
the  monument,  and  asked  him  to  send  her  a  drawing  of  it,  which  he  did. 


M.  27.]  SYDNEY  SMITH.  265 

Sir  James  Mackintosh  is  a  little  too  precise,  a  little  too  much  made 
up  in  his  manners  and  conversation,  but  is  at  the  same  time  very 
exact,  definite,  and  logical  in  what  he  says,  and,  I  am  satisfied,  seldom 
has  occasion  to  regret  a  mistake  or  an  error,  where  a  matter  of  prin 
ciple  or  reasoning  is  concerned,  though,  as  he  is  a  little  given  to  affect 
universal  learning,  he  may  sometimes  make  a  mistake  in  matters  of 
fact.  As  a  part  of  a  considerable  literary  society,  however,  he  dis 
courses  most  eloquent  music,  and  in  private,  where  I  also  saw  him 
several  times,  he  is  mild,  gentle,  and  entertaining.  But  he  is  seen  to 
greatest  advantage,  and  in  all  his  strength,  only  in  serious  discussion, 
to  which  he  brings  great  disciplined  acuteness  and  a  fluent  eloquence, 
which  few  may  venture  to  oppose,  and  which  still  fewer  can  effectu 
ally  resist. 

Allen,  who  is  a  kind  of  secretary  to  Lord  Holland,  and  has  lived 
in  his  family  many  years,  is  a  different  man.  He  has  a  great  deal  of 
talent,  and  has  written  much  and  well,  in  the  "  Edinburgh  Review  "  ; 
he  has  strong  feelings  and  great  independence  of  character,  which 
make  him  sometimes  oppose  and  answer  Lady  Holland  in  a  curious 
manner.  He  has  many  prejudices,  most  of  them  subdued  with  diffi 
culty,  by  his  weight  of  talent  and  his  strong  will,  but  many  still 
remaining,  and,  finally,  warm,  sincere  feelings,  and  an  earnest  desire 
to  serve  those  he  likes.  Sir  James  Mackintosh  said  of  him  to  me, 
that,  considering  the  extent  of  his  knowledge,  he  had  never  known 
anybody  in  whom  it  was  so  accurate  and  sure  ;  and  though  there  is 
something  of  the  partiality  of  an  old  friendship  in  the  remark,  there 
is  truth  in  it,  as  the  "  Review  of  Hallam's  Middle  Ages  "  and  many 
others  will  prove.  Mr.  Allen,  however,  was  not  a  man  to  contribute 
a  great  deal  to  such  general  conversation  as  that  at  Lord  Holland's. 
It  was  necessary  to  sit  down  alone  with  him  in  a  corner,  or  on  a  sofa, 
and  then  his  conversation  was  very  various  and  powerful,  and  showed 
that  he  had  thought  deeply,  and  made  up  his  mind  decisively,  upon 
a  great  many  subjects. 

Sydney  Smith,  who  then  happened  to  be  in  London,  was  in  one 
respect  the  soul  of  the  society.  I  never  saw  a  man  so  formed  to 
float  down  the  stream  of  conversation,  and,  without  seeming  to  have 
any  direct  influence  upon  it,  to  give  it  his  own  hue  and  charm.  He 
is  about  fifty,  corpulent,  but  not  gross,  with  a  great  fund  of  good 
nature,  and  would  be  thought  by  a  person  who  saw  him  only  once, 
and  transiently,  merely  a  gay,  easy  gentleman,  careless  of  everything 
but  the  pleasures  of  conversation  and  society.  This  would  be  a  great 
injustice  to  him,  and  one  that  offends  him,  I  am  told  ;  for,  notwith- 

VOL.  i.  12 


LIFE  OP  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1819. 

standing  the  easy  grace  and  light  playfulness  of  his  wit,  which  comes 
forth  with  unexhausted  and  inexhaustible  facility,  and  reminded  me 
continually  of  the  phosphoric  brilliancy  of  the  ocean,  which  sparkles 
more  brightly  in  proportion  as  the  force  opposed  to  it  is  greater,  yet 
he  is  a  man  of  much  culture,  with  plain  good-sense,  a  sound,  discreet 
judgment,  and  remarkably  just  and  accurate  habits  of  reasoning,  and 
values  himself  upon  these,  as  well  as  on  his  admirable  humor.  This 
is  an  union  of  opposite  qualities,  such  as  nature  usually  delights  to 
hold  asunder,  and  such  as  makes  him,  whether  in  company  or  alone, 
an  irresistibly  amusing  companion  ;  for,  while  his  humor  gives  such 
grace  to  his  argument  that  it  comes  with  the  charm  of  wit,  and  his 
wit  is  so  appropriate  that  its  sallies  are  often  logic  in  masquerade, 
his  good-sense  and  good-nature  are  so  prevalent  that  he  never,  or 
rarely,  offends  against  the  proprieties  of  life  or  society,  and  never  says 
anything  that  he  or  anybody  else  need  to  regret  afterwards. 

Brougham,  whom  I  knew  in  society,  and  from  seeing  him  both  at 
his  chambers  and  at  my  own  lodgings,  is  now  about  thirty-eight,  tall, 
thin,  and  rather  awkward,  with  a  plain  and  not  very  expressive  coun 
tenance,  and  simple  or  even  slovenly  manners.  He  is  evidently 
nervous,  and  a  slight  convulsive  movement  about  the  muscles  of  his 
lips  gives  him  an  unpleasant  expression  now  and  then.  In  short,  all 
that  is  exterior  in  him,  and  all  that  goes  to  make  up  the  first  impres 
sion,  is  unfavorable.  The  first  thing  that  removes  this  impression  is 
the  heartiness  and  good-will  he  shows  you,  whose  motive  cannot  be 
mistaken,  for  such  kindness  can  come  only  from  the  heart.  This  is 
the  first  thing,  but  a  stranger  presently  begins  to  remark  his  conver 
sation.  On  common  topics,  nobody  is  more  commonplace.  He  does 
not  feel  them,  but  if  the  subject  excites  him,  there  is  an  air  of  origi 
nality  in  his  remarks,  which,  if  it  convinces  you  of  nothing  else,  con 
vinces  you  that  you  are  talking  with  an  extraordinary  man.  He  does 
not  like  to  join  in  a  general  conversation,  but  prefers  to  talk  apart 
with  only  two  or  three  persons,  and,  though  with  great  interest  and 
zeal,  in  an  undertone.  If,  however,  he  does  launch  into  it,  all  the 
little,  trim,  gay  pleasure-boats  must  keep  well  out  of  the  way  of  his 
great  black  collier,  as  Gibbon  said  of  Fox.  He  listens  carefully  and 
fairly  —  and  with  a  kindness  that  would  be  provoking,  if  it  were  not 
genuine  —  to  all  his  adversary  has  to  say,  but  when  hia  time  comes 
to  answer,  it  is  with  that  bare,  bold,  bullion  talent  which  either 

crushes  itself  or  its  opponent Yet  I  suspect  the  impression 

Brougham  generally  leaves  is  that  of  a  good-natured  friend.  At  least, 
that  is  the  impression  I  have  most  frequently  found,  both  in  England 
and  on  the  Continent. 


&.  27.]  HATFIELD.  267 

Heber*  is  an  elegant  gentleman,  a  kind  of  literary,  amateur  Mae 
cenas,  with  a  very  fine  and  curious  library  ;  in  short,  a  man  in  whom 
a  gentlemanly  air  prevails,  both  in  his  manners,  accomplishments, 
talents,  and  knowledge,  all  of  which  may  be  considered  remarkable. 

Frere  is  a  slovenly  fellow.  His  remarks  on  Homer,  in  the  "  Classi 
cal  Journal,"  prove  how  fine  a  Greek  scholar  he  is  ;  his  "  Quarterly 
Reviews,"  how  well  he  writes  ;  his  "  Rovers,  or  The  Double  Ar 
rangement,"  what  humor  he  possesses  ;  and  the  reputation  he  has 
left  in  Spain  and  Portugal,  how  much  better  he  understood  their 
literatures  than  they  do  themselves  :  while,  at  the  same  time,  his 
books  left  in  France,  in  Gallicia,  at  Lisbon,  and  two  or  three  places 
in  England  ;  his  manuscripts,  neglected  and  lost  to  himself ;  his  man  - 
ners,  lazy  and  careless  ;  and  his  conversation,  equally  rich  and  negli 
gent,  show  how  little  he  cares  about  all  that  distinguishes  him  in  the 
eyes  of  the  world.  He  studies  as  a  luxury,  he  writes  as  an  amuse 
ment,  and  conversation  is  a  kind  of  sensual  enjoyment  to  him.  If  he 
had  been  born  in  Asia,  he  would  have  been  the  laziest  man  that  ever 
lived 

There  were  of  course  more  who  came  there,  the  Ordes,  Bennett, 
Lord  William  Russell,  etc.,  etc.,  besides  Counts  Palmella  and  Souza  ; 
but  those  I  have  described,  and  who  were  there  often,  constituted  the 
proper  society  at  Lord  Holland's,  and  gave  it  that  tone  of  culture, 
wit,  and  good  talk  without  pretension,  which  make  it,  as  an  elegant 
society,  the  best  I  have  seen  in  Europe.  It  was  in  this  society  I  spent 
all  the  leisure  time  I  had  while  I  was  in  London. 

Two  days  I  passed  very  pleasantly  at  the  Marquess  of  Salisbury's. 
He  lives  at  Hatfield,  Herts.,  in  a  fine  establishment,  once  a  residence 
of  James  I.,  and  built  by  him  ;  though  a  part  of  it  is  older,  and  contains 
the  room  where  Elizabeth  was  imprisoned  by  her  sister  Mary,  and 
Avrote  the  verses  that  still  remain  to  us.  It  is  surrounded  by  a  large 
park,  full  of  venerable  oaks,  and  is  a  kind  of  old  baronial  seat,  which 
well  suits  with  the  species  of  hospitality  exercised  there.  The  long 
gallery  is  a  grand,  solemn  hall,  which,  with  its  ornaments,  carries  the 
imagination  at  once  back  to  the  period  when  it  was  built ;  and  King 
James's  room,  an  enormous  saloon,  fitted  up  with  grave  magnificence, 

is  said  to  be  one  of  the  most  remarkable  rooms  in  England I 

arrived  late  in  the  afternoon,  ....  and,  while  I  was  dressing,  a  large 
party  of  gentlemen  that  had  been  out  hunting  passed  under  my  win 
dows,  on  their  return  to  the  hall,  with  all  the  uproar  and  exultation 

of  success 

*  Richard  Heber. 


268  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1819. 

We  sat  down  to  dinner  about  thirty  strong.  The  conversation  was 
chiefly  political  and  high  ministerial,  but  the  young  gentlemen  talked 
a  good  deal  about  the  day's  sport,  which,  just  at  this  moment,  when 

the  shooting  season  is  closing,  is  a  matter  of  importance As  we 

returned  to  the  saloon,  we  found  a  band  of  music  playing  in  the  long 
gallery,  which  we  were  obliged  to  traverse  in  its  whole  length.  After 
coffee  and  tea  had  been  served,  the  party  was  a  little  increased  by 
visitors  from  the  neighborhood,  and  for  those  who  were  disposed  to 
dance  there  was  the  long  gallery  and  music,  but  no  ceremony 

The  marquess  is  seventy  years  old,*  but  well  preserved,  and  a  speci 
men  of  the  gentlemen  of  the  last  generation,  with  elegant,  easy  man 
ners,  and  a  proud,  graceful  courtesy.  Lady  Salisbury  is  but  little 
younger,  yet  able  to  ride  on  horseback  every  day,  and  even  to  join 

occasionally  in  the  chase I  became,  of  course,  acquainted  with 

most  of  the  persons  there  ;  but  those  that  interested  and  pleased  me 
most  were  the  Marchioness  of  Downshire  and  her  two  daughters,  the 
Ladies  Hill,  beautiful  girls  and  much  accomplished,  with  whom  I 
danced  all  the  evening.  I  know  not  when  I  have  enjoyed  myself  in 
the  same  way  so  much  and  so  simply 

[The  next  morning]  Lord  Cranbournet  took  me  out  and  showed  me 
the  antiquities  of  the  house  and  the  beauties  of  the  place.  We  rode 
about  the  fine  park,  stopped  a  little  to  see  a  shooting  battue  that  was 
going  on,  went  over  the  farming  arrangements,  etc.,  all  marked  with 
that  extensive  completeness  and  finish  which  it  is  seldom  wrong  to 
presuppose  when  an  English  nobleman's  seat  is  concerned 

On  returning  to  the  saloon  [after  dinner  of  the  second  day],  we 
found  that  a  great  deal  of  company  had  come,  and  in  the  course  of  an 
hour,  the  nobility  and  gentry  of  the  county  were  collected  there.  It 
was,  in  fact,  an  annual  ball  that  Lady  Salisbury,  who  loves  old  fash 
ions,  gives  every  winter,  in  compliance  with  ancient  usage,  to  the 
respectable  families  in  the  county,  besides  being  at  home,  as  it  is 
called,  one  evening  in  every  week  to  any  who  are  disposed  to  come 

and  dance  without  show  or  ceremony The  evening  to  me  was 

delightful.  I  liked  this  sort  of  hospitality,  which  is  made  to  embrace 
a  whole  county.  The  next  morning  I  came  back  to  London, ....  and 
the  following  day  early  set  off  for  the  North. 

I  went,  however,  at  first,  no  farther  than  Bedfordshire,  where  I 
passed  three  days  at  the  splendid  seat  of  the  Duke  of  Bedford,  The 
entrance  to  Woburn  Abbey  is  by  a  Roman  gateway  opening  into  the 

*  First  Marquess  of  Salisbury,  died  in  1823. 
t  Eldest  son  of  Lord  Salisbury. 


M.  27.]  WOBURN  ABBEY.  269 

park,  through  which  you  are  conducted,  by  an  avenue  of  venerable 
elms,  through  fine  varieties  of  hill  and  dale,  woodland  and  pasture, 

and  by  the  side  of  streamlets  and  little  lakes,  above  three  miles 

I  arrived  late  in  the  afternoon At  half  past  six  Lord  John  Rus 
sell,  who  had  just  returned  from  shooting,  made  me  a  visit,  and  car 
ried  me  to  the  saloon  and  introduced  me  to  his  father  and  family.  I 
was  received  with  an  English  welcome,  and  a  few  minutes  afterwards 
we  sat  down  to  table.  There  were  about  twenty  guests  at  the  Abbey, 
the  Marquess  and  Marchioness  of  Woodstock,  Earl  and  Countess  Jer 
sey,  Earl  Spencer,*  Marquess  Tavistock,  Lord  and  Lady  Ebrington, 
Lord  and  Lady  William  Kussell,  Mr.  Adair,  etc.  The  dinner  was 
pleasant,  —  at  least  it  was  so  to  me,  —  for  I  conversed  the  whole  time 
with  Mr.  Adair,f  formerly  the  British  Minister  at  Vienna,  and  a  man 
of  much  culture,  and  Lady  Jersey,  a  beautiful  creature  with  a  great 
deal  of  talent,  taste,  and  elegant  knowledge,  whom  I  knew  a  little  on 
the  Continent 

In  the  evening  the  party  returned  to  the  great  saloon,  called  the 
Hall  of  State,  and  every  one  amused  himself  as  he  chose,  either  at 
cards,  in  listening  to  music,  or  in  conversation,  though  several  deserted 
to  the  billiard-room.  For  myself,  I  found  amusement  enough  in  talk 
ing  with  Lady  Jersey,  or  Lord  John  Russell,  or  the  old  and  excellent 
Earl  Spencer,  but  I  think  the  majority  was  rather  captivated  with 
Lady  Ebrington's  music 

The  next  morning,  at  ten  o'clock,  found  us  mustered  in  the  break 
fast-room.  It  was  a  day  of  no  common  import  at  a  nobleman's  country- 
seat,  for  it  was  the  last  of  the  shooting  season.  The  Duke  was  anxious 
to  have  a  quantity  of  game  killed  that  should  maintain  the  reputation 
of  the  Abbey,  for  the  first  sporting-ground  in  Great  Britain  ;  and  there 
fore  solemn  preparations  were  made  to  have  a  grand  battue  of  the 
park,  for  it  was  intended,  in  order  to  give  more  reputation  to  the  day's 
success,  that  nothing  should  be  shot  out  of  it ;  nor,  indeed,  was  there 
any  great  need  of  extending  the  limit,  for  the  park  is  twelve  miles  in 
circumference.  Mr.  Adair,  Lord  John,  and  myself  declined,  as  no 
sportsmen,  and  so  the  number  was  reduced  to  eleven,  of  whom  seven 
were  excellent  shots.  The  first  gun  was  fired  a  little  before  twelve, 
the  last  at  half  past  five  ;  and  when,  after  the  dinner-cloth  was  removed 
in  the  evening,  the  game-keeper  appeared,  dressed  in  all  his  parapher 
nalia,  and  rendered  in  his  account,  it  was  found  that  four  hundred  and 
four  hares,  partridges,  and  pheasants  had  been  killed,  of  which  more 

*  Second  Earl  Spencer. 

t  Afterwards  the  Right  Honorable  Sir  Robert  Adair. 


270  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR. 

than  half  were  pheasants.  The  person  who  killed  the  most  was  Lord 
Spencer,  though  the  oldest  man  there.  This  success,  of  course,  gave 
great  spirits  to  the  party  at  dinner,  a  good  deal  of  wine  was  consumed, 
—  though  nobody  showed  any  disposition  to  drink  to  excess,  —  and 
the  evening  passed  off  very  pleasantly.  It  was  certainly  as  splendid  a 
specimen  as  I  could  have  hoped  to  see,  of  what  is  to  be  considered 
peculiarly  English  in  the  life  of  a  British  nobleman  of  the  first  class 
at  his  country-seat.  I  enjoyed  it  highly. 

The  next  day  was  much  more  quiet.  Several  of  the  party  went  to 
town,  and,  though  Lord  Auckland  and  one  or  two  others  came  down 
to  the  Abbey,  the  number  was  seriously  diminished.  I  had  the  more 
time  and  opportunity  to  see  the  establishment  and  become  acquainted 
with  its  inhabitants.  Considered  as  a  whole,  Woburn  Abbey  is  some 
times  called  the  finest  estate  in  England.  As  I  went  over  it,  I  thought 
I  should  never  find  an  end  to  all  its  arrangements  and  divisions. 
Within  —  besides  the  mere  bouse,  which  is  the  largest  and  most  splen 
did  I  have  seen  —  is  the  picture-gallery,  containing  about  two  hundred 
pieces,  many  of  which,  of  the  Spanish  and  Italian  schools,  are  of  great 
merit ;  and  the  library,  which  is  a  magnificent  collection  of  splendid 
books,  composed  of  beautiful  editions  of  the  best  authors,  in  all  lan 
guages,  besides  a  mass  of  engravings  and  maps.  I  could  have  occu 
pied  myself  in  these  apartments  for  a  month.  Outside,  there  are  the 
aviary,  fish-ponds,  greenhouses,  the  gardens,  tennis-court,  riding-school, 
etc.,  and  a  gallery  containing  a  few  antiques  that  are  curious,  especially 
the  immense  Lanti  vase,  which  has  been  much  talked  about,  and  well 
deserves  it 

The  Duke  of  Bedford  is  now  about  fifty-five,  a  plain,  unpretending 
man  in  his  manner,  reserved  in  society,  but  talking  well  when  alone, 
and  respectable  in  debate  in  the  House  of  Peers  ;  a  great  admirer  of 
the  fine  arts,  which  he  patronizes  liberally  ;  and,  finally,  one  of  the 
best  farmers  in  England,  and  one  of  those  who  have  most  improved 

the  condition  of  their  estates  by  scientific  and  careful  cultivation 

Lord  John  is  a  young  man  of  a  good  deal  of  literary  knowledge  and 
taste,  from  whose  acquaintance  I  have  had  much  pleasure.* 

On  the  4th  February  I  left  the  hospitality,  kindness,  and  quiet  en 
joyment  of  Woburn  Abbey,  and  went  OA'er  to  Cambridge Of  the 

society  at  Cambridge  I  had  a  pretty  fair  specimen,  I  imagine,  though 
I  passed  only  three  days  there.  The  first  afternoon,  on  my  arrival, 
I  went  to  young  Craufurd's,  son  of  Sir  James,  whom  I  knew  in  Italy 
last  winter.  He  had  just  taken  his  degree,  and  is  to  receive  a  fellow- 

*  They  had  met  in  Italy.    See  ante,  p.  166. 


M.  27.]  CAMBRIDGE.  271 

ship  at  King's  in  a  few  days,  so  that  he  is  rather  more  than  a  fair 
specimen  of  their  manners  and  learning.  I  dined  with  him  in  their 
hall,  and  passed  the  evening  with  him  at  his  room,  in  one  of  those 
little  parties  the  young  men  make  up,  to  drink  wine  and  have  a  des 
sert  after  dinner.  Those  I  met  with  Mm  were  clearly  above  the  com 
mon  level,  as  I  knew  he  himself  was  ;  but  still,  admitting  them  to  be 
among  the  best,  I  was  struck  with  the  good  tone  that  prevailed  among 
them,  their  sensible  and  sometimes  acute  conversation,  and  their  easy, 
gentlemanly  manners.  I  must,  too,  add,  that,  although  I  saw  others 
of  his  acquaintance  at  breakfast  the  next  morning,  and  occasionally 
met  students  elsewhere,  I  did  not  find  any  material  difference.  .... 

The  second  day  I  was  in  Cambridge  I  passed  entirely  with  Professor 
Monk,*  who  went  round  with  me  all  the  morning,  to  show  me  the 

buildings  and  curiosities  of  the  place There  was  much  pleasure 

in  this,  and  I  was  rather  sorry  when  dinner-time  came,  which  is  a 
pretty  formidable  thing  in  Cambridge.  I  dined  to-day  in  the  great 
dinner-hall  of  Trinity,  with  Professor  Monk  and  the  Fellows  and 
Professors  attached  to  that  college.  We  were  at  a  separate  table  with 
the  Gentlemen  Commoners,  and  fared  very  well.  The  mass  of  stu 
dents  was  -below,  and  a  slight  distinction  was  made  in  their  food.  I 
met  here  the  Vice-Master,  Renouard,  Sedgwick,  Judgson  ;  the  Dean, 
Dobree,  Monk's  rival  in  Greek  ;  and,  after  dinner,  went  to  the  Com 
bination  Room,  where  much  wine  was  drunk,  much  talk  carried  on. 
The  tone  of  this  society  was  certainly  stiff  and  pedantic,  and  a  good 
deal  of  little  jealousy  was  apparent,  in  the  manner  in  which  they  spoke 
of  persons  with  whom  they  or  their  college  or  their  university  had 

come  into  collision I  ought  to  add,  that  we  passed  the  evening 

at  Mr.  Sedgwick's  rooms,  where  there  were  only  a  few  persons  from 
several  different  colleges,  among  whom  better  manners  and  a  finer  tact 
in  conversation  prevailed 

Herbert  Marsh  and  Dr.  Clarke  were  not  in  Cambridge.  One  per 
son,  however,  I  knew  there,  who  was  both  a  scholar  and  an  accom 
plished  gentleman,  Dr.  Davy,  Master  of  Caius,  to  whom  Lord  Holland 
gave  me  letters,  and  from  whom  I  received  a  great  deal  of  kindness. 
I  breakfasted  with  him  alone,  and  enjoyed  the  variety  of  his  conver 
sation,  always  nourished  with  good  learning,  but  never  hardened  with 

pedantry In  the  afternoon  he  carried  me  to  dine  with  a  club 

which  originated  in  attachment  to  the  fallen  Stuarts,  and  was  there 
fore  called  "  The  Family,"  but  has  long  since  become  a  mere  dinner 
party  every  fortnight.  Six  of  the  fourteen  Masters  were  there,  Smyth, 

*  Greek  professor,  afterwards  Bishop  of  Gloucester. 


272  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1819. 

the  Professor  of  Modern  History,  and  two  or  three  other  professors. 
I  was  amused  with  the  severity  of  their  adherence  to  ancient  customs 
and  manners,  and  was  somewhat  surprised  to  find  pipes  introduced 
after  dinner,  not  so  much  because  smoking  was  liked,  as  because  it  was 
ancient  in  the  usages  of  the  club 

My  journey  to  the  North  was  a  journey  of  speed,  and,  of  course,  I 

saw  little  and  enjoyed  less Two  or  three  points  and  moments, 

however,  I  shall  not  easily  forget.  The  first  was  York.  I  arrived 
there  on  Sunday  morning,  and  remained  until  the  next  day,  but  I 
passed  the  greater  part  of  my  time  in  its  grand  Gothic  cathedral.  It 
is  one  of  those  great  monuments  of  the  ponderous  power  of  the  clergy 
of  the  thirteenth  and  fourteenth  centuries  which  are  scattered  all  over 
Europe,  and  whose  unfinished  magnificence  shows  how  suddenly  this 
power  was  broken  up.  York  is  as  grand  and  imposing  as  almost  any 
of  them,  I  think,  unless  it  be  that  at  Seville,  where  there  is  a  solemn 
harmony  between  the  dim  light  that  struggles  through  its  storied 
windows,  the  dark,  threatening  masses  of  the  pile  itself,  the  imposing 
power  of  the  paintings,  ....  and  the  deep,  wailing  echoes  of  that  wor 
ship  which  is  to  be  found  and  felt,  in  all  its  original  dignity  and  power, 

only  beyond  the  Pyrenees Excepting  that,  I  know  nothing  that 

goes  before  York 

The  next  point  that  surprised  me  was  Newcastle.  I  merely  passed 
the  night  there,  ....  but  the  appearance  of  the  country  about  it  was 
extraordinary.  At  the  side  of  every  coal-pit  a  quantity  of  the  finer 
parts  that  are  thrown  out  is  perpetually  burning,  and  the  effect  pro 
duced  by  the  earth,  thus  apparently  everywhere  on  fire,  both  on  the 
machinery  used  and  the  men  busied  with  it,  was  horrible.  It  seemed 
as  if  I  were  in  Dante's  shadowy  world.  .... 


.  27.]  DEATH  OF  HIS  MOTHER.  273 


CHAPTEE    XIV. 

Edinburgh.  —  News  of  his  Mother's  Death.  —  Mrs.  Grant.  —  Mrs. 
Fletcher.  —  Playfair.  —  Scott.  —  Abbotsford.  —  Southey.  —  Words 
worth.  —  Dr.  Parr.  —  Sir  James  Mackintosh.  —  London.  —  Hazlitt. 
—  Godwin.  —  Wilberforce.  —  Return  to  America. 

To  MB.  ELISHA  TICKNOR. 

EDINBURGH,  February  11,  1819. 

I  HAVE  received  your  letter,  dearest  father,  to-day.  It  was  very 
unexpected,  but  I  have  not  been  altogether  overcome.  Cogswell 
will  tell  you  so.  I  do  not  think  anybody  has  willingly  deceived  me, 
certainly  the  last  persons  in  the  world  to  have  done  it  would  have  been 
either  you,  my  dear,  my  only  parent,  or  dear  Eliza,  or  Savage.  You 
were  all  deceived  by  your  hopes,  and  if  this  prevented  you  from  pre 
paring  me  for  the  great  calamity  with  which  God  is  now  afflicting  us 
all,  it  is  certainly  not  for  me  to  complain  that  the  blow  has  fallen  so 
heavily Cogswell  will  tell  you  I  have  been  very  calm,  con 
sidering  how  small  my  fears  were 

I  pray  God  to  reconcile  me  altogether  to  his  will.  I  have  endeav 
ored  to  do  what  seemed  to  me  right  and  best,  ....  and  even  if  I 
had  embarked  at  Lisbon,  where  I  received  the  first  news  that  made 
me  think  her  constitution  had  received  a  considerable  shock,  I  should 

have  arrived  too  late I  see,  dearest  father,  with  what  Christian 

resignation  and  firmness  you  meet  the  dreadful  shock,  and  I  pray 
continually  that  I  may  be  enabled  to  follow  your  example 

I  cannot  now  make  any  plan,  or  think  of  my  situation  and  circum 
stances  coolly  enough  to  be  sure  of  myself,  but  of  this  you  may  be 
certain,  that  I  will  do  nothing  unadvisedly,  and  nothing  that  any  of 
us  will  regret  hereafter.  Think  of  me,  then,  as  trusting  in  Heaven, 
....  as  supported  by  Cogswell's  unwearied  kindness,  and  as  willing 
to  make  any  sacrifice  to  attain  the  objects  that  are  still  attainable; 
If  I  could  but  see  you  one  hour,  the  half  of  this  bitterness  would  be 
removed  ;  but  it  cannot  be,  and  I  submit. 

12*  R 


274  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1819. 

To  MR.  ELISHA  TICKNOR. 

EDINBURGH,  February  15,  1819. 

It  is  only  five  days  since  I  wrote  you,  my  very  dear  father,  but  it 
seems  a  much  longer  time.  Such  sad  hours,  occupied  only  with  cruel 

regrets,  move  but  slowly I  had  been  in  Edinburgh  but  one 

day  when  your  letter  arrived.  Of  course  I  had  seen  nobody,  and  had 
done  nothing,  and  in  the  five  days  that  have  passed  since,  I  have  not 
had  the  spirit  to  go  out  of  the  house.  I  remembered,  however,  all 
your  injunctions  to  go  on,  and  accomplish  the  purposes  for  which  I 
came  to  Europe,  and  as  there  remains  really  very  little  to  do,  I  do 
not  think  but  I  shall  accomplish  it.  It  consists  chiefly  in  seeing 
many  different  persons,  learning  their  opinions,  modifying  my  own, 
and,  in  general,  collecting  that  sort  of  undefined  and  indefinite  feel 
ing,  respecting  books  and  authors,  which  exists  in  Europe  as  a  kind 
of  unwritten  tradition,  and  never  comes  to  us,  because  nobody  ever 
takes  the  pains  to  collect  it  systematically,  though  it  is  often  the 
electric  principle  that  gives  life  to  the  dead  mass  of  inefficient  knowl 
edge,  and  vigor  and  spirit  to  inquiry.  Besides  this,  I  desire  to  learn 
something  of  Scottish  literature  and  literary  history,  and  pick  up  my 
library  in  this  department  and  in  English.  It  is  not  a  great  deal ;  if 
it  were,  I  might  shrink  from  it. 

I  began  this  morning,  recollecting  that  the  longer  I  suffer  myself  to 
defer  it,  the  longer  I  must  be  kept  from  you.  The  first  person  I 
went  to  see  was  Mrs.  Grant  ....  I  had  not  yet  seen  her,  but  when 
she  knew  why  I  did  not  call,  she  sent  me  a  note  which  touched  me 

very  deeply The  hour  I  passed  with  her  was  very  pleasant 

to  me.  .  .  .  .. 

Afterwards  I  called  on  Dr.  Anderson,  "  the  good  old  Doctor  Ander 
son,"  as  the  "  Quarterly  Keview  "  calls  him,  and  as  everybody  must 
think  him  to  be  who  has  seen  him  even  once.  He  is  the  person,  per 
haps,  of  all  now  alive,  who  best  knows  English  literary  history,  to  say 
nothing  of  Scotch,  which  was,  as  it  were,  born  with  him.  He  received 
me  with  all  the  kindness  I  had  been  taught  to  expect  from  him,  and 
to-morrow  morning  I  am  to  breakfast  with  him  and  explain  to  him 
all  I  want  to  do  and  learn  here,  and  get  what  information  he  can  give 
me.  He  is  a  kind  of  literary  patriarch,  almost  seventy  years  old,  and 
I  certainly  could  not  have  put  myself  into  better  hands.  You  see, 
my  dear  father,  that  I  have  already  begun  to  do  what  you  desired, 
and  I  shall  go  on  until  it  is  finished.  In  five  weeks,  I  think  nothjng 
will  remain  to  be  done  in  Edinburgh,  and  then  I  shall  go,  by  the  way 


M.  27.]  SCOTCH  LITERATURE.  275 

of  Oxford,  to  London,  finish  what  I  have  to  do  there,  and  embark  in 

the  first  good  ship Farewell. 

GEOBGE. 

The  following  passage  was  added  to  the  Journal  in  the  suc 
ceeding  September :  — 

On  the  night  of  the  10th  of  February  I  reached  Edinburgh.  I 
entered  no  capital  of  Europe  with  a  lighter  heart  and  more  confident 
expectations  of  enjoyment And  yet  it  was  there  I  was  des 
tined  to  meet  the  severest  suffering  my  life  had  yet  known.  On  the 
llth  I  received  letters  announcing  the  death  of  my  mother  on 
the  31st  of  December.  ....  The  first  anguish  of  the  reflection  that 
I  was  not  with  her  was  almost  more  than  I  could  bear.  It  seemed 
to  me  that  I  had  done  wrong  in  going  to  Europe  at  all ;  and  even 
now,  that  I  write  this,  many  months  after  the  bitterness  of  the  first 
suffering  has  gone  by,  it  is  a  thought  I  cannot  entirely  drive  from  my 

mind But  all  is  iu  the  hands  of  Him  who  has  thus  taken  what 

was  dearest  to  me  in  life,  and  who  seems  peculiarly  to  have  reserved 
to  Himself  the  consolation  of  sorrows  which  He  alone  can  inflict ; 
so  that  we  may  sometimes,  at  least,  feel  with  persuading  sensibility 
how  entirely  we  are  dependent  upon  Him. 

To  MB.  ELISHA  TIOKNOB. 

EDINBURGH,  March  1, 1819. 

Since  I  wrote  you  last,  my  dear  father,  I  have  not  done  much.  I 
know  not  well  what  is  the  matter  with  me,  but  I  have  a  kind  of  tor 
por  and  inefficiency  in  my  faculties,  which  makes  me  pass  my  time 
here  to  very  little  purpose.  This  is  by  no  means  from  the  want  of 
effort,  for  I  do  not  think  I  ever  made  greater  exertions  in  my  life.  I 
have  been  to  see  nearly,  or  quite,  everybody  that  would  have  inter 
ested  me,  if  I  were  in  the  proper  state  of  mind  to  be  interested. 

In  the  main  point  I  am  likely  to  succeed  well  enough.  I  mean  the 
literature  peculiar  to  the  country.  I  have  received  all  the  kindness 
and  assistance  possible  in  this,  from  the  four  persons  in  Edinburgh 
best  qualified  to  give  them,  Walter  Scott,  Mr.  Jamieson,  Dr.  An 
derson,  and  Mr.  Thomson.  Mr.  Jamieson  comes  to  me  every  morn 
ing,  and  we  have  read  Scotch  poetry  together,  from  the  earliest  times 
down  to  our  own  day,  until  it  has  become  as  easy  to  me  as  English. 
But  I  wish  him  to  continue  a  week  longer,  for  in  every  literature  there 
are  many  things  to  be  learnt  besides  the  words  and  the  language, 


276  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1819. 

which  can  never  be  learnt  but  on  the  spot,  because  they  are  never 
preserved  but  as  a  kind  of  tradition,  especially  in  cases  like  this, 
where  the  literature  has  not  yet  been  fully  elaborated  and  criticised. 
This,  indeed,  is  the  great  advantage  of  the  society  of  men  of  letters 
in  Europe  :  it  saves  an  immense  amount  of  time  ;  for  a  question,  ad 
dressed  to  one  who  has  thoroughly  studied  a  subject  you  are  just 
beginning  to  investigate,  often  produces  an  answer  that  is  better  than 
a  volume,  and  perhaps  serves  as  a  successful  explanation  to  half  a 
dozen.  There  is  a  good  deal  of  this  society  in  Edinburgh,  certainly, 
but  not  so  much  as  I  expected  to  find,  or  else  I  am  not  in  a  situation 
to  understand  or  enjoy  it.  I  know,  however,  all  the  principal  per 
sons  who  compose  it,  and  meet  them  frequently,  but  there  seems  to 
be  a  great  difficulty  about  it,  or  rather  a  great  defect  in  it.  When  a 
number  of  persons  are  met  together,  as  at  a  dinner,  the  conversation 
is  rarely  general  ;  one  person  makes  a  speech,  and  then  another,  and 
finally  it  stops,  nobody  knows  why,  but  certainly  there  is  a  kind  of 
vis  inertia  in  it,  which  makes  its  tendency  rather  to  stop  than  to  go  on. 
It  is  necessary,  therefore,  to  take  each  person  singly,  and  then,  if  you 
insist  upon  talking  with  him,  it  is  most  probable  he  will  talk  very 
well.  I  know  of  but  two  exceptions  to  this  remark,  and  they  are 
Prof.  Playfair  and  Walter  Scott,  who  under  all  circumstances  must 
be  delightful  men. 

To  HIS  SISTER. 

....  I  build  a  great  many  castles  in  my  head,  and  have  many  a 
waking  and  sleeping  vision  about  a  home,  but  all  must  remain  uncer 
tain  and  unsettled  till  we  meet.  For  myself,  the  desire  that  prevails 
over  all  others  is,  that  of  returning  the  little  I  can,  of  the  great  debt 
my  infancy  and  childhood,  and  indeed  my  whole  life,  has  incurred  to 
you  and  to  our  dear  father.  How  this  may  best  be  done  must  be 
determined  by  yourselves,  and  my  life  will  easily  accommodate  itself 
to  it,  as  you  are  now  its  chief  objects  and  highest  duties. 

JOURNAL. 

March,  1819.  —  Edinburgh  is  certainly  one  of  the  beautiful  cities 
of  Europe.  It  is  situated  on  the  declivity  of  a  hill  ending  with  the 
bold  rock  on  which  the  Castle  stands,  or,  rather,  is  there  broken  by 

a  bold  ravine  which  divides  the  old  town  from  the  new It  is 

hardly  necessary  to  be  nice  in  the  selection  of  particular  points  about 
Edinburgh.  It  is  all  beautiful,  and  it  is  enough  to  get  upon  a  height 


JE.  27.]  EDINBURGH  SOCIETY.  277 

or  a  steeple,  anywhere,  and  you  are  sure  to  be  rewarded  with  a  rich 
and  various  prospect 

The  society  here  is  certainly  excellent In  open-heartedness 

I  imagine  it  is  almost  unrivalled,  and  what  that  virtue  is,  how  com 
pletely  it  will  cover  a  multitude  of  deficiencies  and  defects,  one  who  has 
lonw  been  a  stranger  and  obliged  to  make  many  strangers  his  friends, 
can  alone  know.  It  is  a  great  thing,  too,  to  have  so  much  influence 
granted  to  talent  as  there  is  in  Edinburgh,  for  it  breaks  down  the 
artificial  distinctions  of  society,  and  makes  its  terms  easy  to  all  who 
ought  to  enter  it,  and  have  any  right  to  be  there.  And  it  is  a  still 
greater  thing  to  have  this  talent  come  familiarly  into  the  fashion  of 
the  times,  sustained  by  that  knowledge  which  must  give  it  a  preva 
lent  authority,  and  at  once  receive  and  impart  a  polish  and  a  tone 
which  give  a  charm  to  each  alike,  and  without  which  neither  can 
become  what  it  ought  to  be  to  itself  or  the  world.  This,  I  think,  is 
the  secret  of  the  fascination  of  society  at  Edinburgh 

I  did  not,  of  course,  seek  general  society  at  Edinburgh  ;  still,  I  knew 
a  good  many  persons,  most,  indeed,  whom  I  was  desirous  to  know 

before  I  went  there To  Count  Flahault's  I  went  often.  He  is  a 

Frenchman,  an  elegant  man,  bred  in  England  and  with  English  habits 
and  feelings  ;  and  now  married  to  a  daughter  of  Lord  Keith,  a  woman 
of  a  great  deal  of  spirit,  talent,  and  culture,  who  was  the  most  intimate 
of  the  personal  friends  of  the  Princess  Charlotte,  and  had  more  influ 
ence  over  her  than  almost  anybody  else.  Her  health  was  not  good, 
and  so  they  were  always  at  home,  and  had  more  or  less  informal  so 
ciety  every  evening.  Among  the  persons  who  came  there,  besides 
Lord  Belhaven  and  Lord  Elcho,  —  two  of  the  most  respectable  young 
noblemen  in  Scotland,  —  were  Cranston,  the  first  lawyer  there ;  Clerk, 
Thomson,  and  Murray,  three  more  of  their  distinguished  advocates ; 
Sir  Thomas  Trowbridge,  the  same  good-natured,  gentlemanly  man  I 
had  known  at  Rome  ;  and  Jeffrey,  who,  both  here  and  in  his  own 
house  and  in  all  society,  was  a  much  more  domestic,  quiet  sort  of  per 
son  than  we  found  him  in  America. 

There  was  a  young  lady  staying  there,  too,  who  drew  a  great  deal 
of  company  to  the  house,  Miss  McLane,  the  most  beautiful  lady  in 
Scotland,  and  one,  indeed,  whose  beauty  has  wrought  more  wonders 
than  almost  anybody's  since  the  time  of  Helen  ;  for  she  has  actually 
been  followed  by  the  mob  in  the  street,  until  she  was  obliged  to  take 
refuge  in  a  shop  from  their  mere  admiration,  and  gave  up  going  to 
the  theatre  because  the  pit  twice  rose  up,  and,  taking  off  their  hats 
to  show  it  was  done  in  respect,  called  upon  her  to  come  to  the  front 


278  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1819. 

of  the  box  where  she  sat,  and  stand  up,  that  they  might  see  her. 
For  myself,  I  could  not  find  her  so  very  remarkable,  though  still  I 
would  not  appeal  from  a  decision  like  this,  which  is  like  the  decision 
of  a  nation.  She  had  a  fine  face,  certainly,  an  open,  radiant  kind  of 
beauty,  an  exquisite  complexion,  brilliant  black  eyes  and  hair,  and  a 
very  graceful  figure  and  manner.  Her  conversation,  too,  was  light 
and  pleasant  and  unaffected,  and,  what  was  most  of  all  to  her  credit, 
though  she  had  a  perfect  consciousness  of  her  own  beauty,  which  she 
took  no  pains  to  conceal,  it  was  mingled  with  no  conceit  It  was  like 

an  historical  fact  to  her She  had  half  the  titles  in  Scotland  at 

her  feet 

I  went  quite  as  often  to  Mrs.  Grant's,  where  an  American,  I  im 
agine,  finds  himself  at  home  more  easily  than  anywhere  else  in  Edin 
burgh.  She  is  an  old  lady  of  such  great  good-nature  and  such  strong 
good-sense,  mingled  with  a  natural  talent,  plain  knowledge,  and  good 
taste,  derived  from  English  reading  alone,  that  when  she  chooses  to 
be  pleasant  she  can  be  so  to  a  high  degree.  Age  and  sorrow  have 
fallen  pretty  heavily  upon  her.  She  is  about  seventy,  and  has  lost 
eeveral  of  her  children,  but  still  she  is  interested  in  what  is  going  for 
ward  in  the  world,  tells  a  great  number  of  amusing  stories  about  the 
past  generation,  and  gives  striking  sketches  of  Highland  manners  and 
feelings,  of  which  she  is  herself  an  interesting  representative.*.  .  .  . 
Not  a  great  deal  of  society  came  to  her  house,  and  what  there  was  did 
not  much  interest  me.  I  met  there  Owen  of  Lanark,  who  talked  me 
out  of  all  patience  with  his  localities  and  universalities  ;  Wilson,  of 
"  The  Isle  of  Palms,"  a  pretending  young  man,  but  with  a  great  deal 
of  talent  t ;  Hogg,  the  poet,  vulgar  as  his  name,  and  a  perpetual  con 
tradiction,  in  his  conversation,  to  the  exquisite  delicacy  of  his  Kil- 
meny.  .... 

*  Extract  from  a  letter  of  Mrs.  Grant  to  a  friend  in  America,  dated  June  24, 
1819:  "  The  American  character  has  been  much  raised  among  our  literary  peo 
ple  here,  by  a  constellation  of  persons  of  brilliant  talents  and  polished  manners, 
by  whom  we  were  dazzled  and  delighted  last  winter.  A  Mr.  Preston  of  Virginia 
[South  Carolina]  and  his  friend  from  Carolina,  whose  name  I  cannot  spell,  for  it 
is  French  [Hugh  S.  Legare],  Mr.  Ticknor,  and  Mr.  Cogswell  were  the  most  dis 
tinguished  representatives  of  your  new  world.  A  handsome  and  high-bred  Mr. 
Ralston,  from  Philadelphia,  whose  mind  seemed  equal  to  his  other  attractions, 
left  also  a  very  favorable  impression  of  transatlantic  accomplishments.  These 
were  all  very  agreeable  persons,  Mr.  Ticknor  pre-eminently  so,  and  I  can  assure 
you  ample  justice  was  done  to  their  merits  here."  —  Memoirs  of  Mrs.  Anne 
Grant,  of  Laggan. 

t  John  Wilson,  "  Christopher  North,"  whose  chief  acknowledged  production 
at  this  time  was  the  "  Isle  of  Palms,"  a  poem. 


M.  27.]  PLAYFAIR  AND   MACKENZIE.  279 

Mrs.  Fletcher  is  the  most  powerful  lady  in  conversation  in  Edin 
burgh,  and  has  a  Whig  coterie  of  her  own,  as  Mrs.  Grant  has  a  Tory 
one.  She  is  the  lady  in  Edinburgh  by  way  of  eminence,  and  her  con- 
\'ersation  is  more  sought  than  that  of  anybody  there.*  I  have  heard 
Sir  James  Mackintosh  and  Brougham  speak  of  it  with  enthusiasm, 
and  regret  that  she  does  not  live  in  London,  where  they  might  hear 
her  every  day.  She  is,  indeed,  an  extraordinary  person.  She  con 
verses  with  fluency,  and  with  an  energy  and  confidence  that  would 
seem  masculine,  if  she  did  not  yield  so  gently  and  gracefully,  and  did 
not  seem  to  seek  always  to  become  a  listener  ;  and  she  has  an  ele 
gance  and  finish  in  the  construction  of  her  sentences  which  is  uncom 
mon  even  in  practised  speakers,  and  which  I  have  hardly  found  in  a 

lady  before  ;  and  yet  it  is  apparent  it  is  done  without  effort One 

of  her  daughters,  Mrs.  Taylor,  is  one  of  the  sweetest,  most  beautiful, 
and  most  interesting  creatures  I  ever  beheld.  Another,  Miss  Fletcher, 
will,  I  think,  be  as  remarkable  as  her  mother.  This  was,  therefore,  a 
delightful  house  to  visit,  and  during  the  latter  part  of  the  time  I  was 
in  Edinburgh  I  went  there  often. 

Playfair  is  a  most  interesting  man  of  seventy.  I  would  rather  be 
like  him,  in  general  temper,  manners,  and  disposition,  than  like  any 
body  of  that  age  I  know.  To  say  nothing  of  the  amount  of  his  cul 
ture  and  the  elegance  of  his  mind,  which  does  not  seem  to  grow  dim 
with  age,  ....  he  has  a  childlike  simplicity  of  manner,  a  modesty 
which  will  bring  a  blush  on  his  cheek  like  that  of  a  boy  of  fifteen, 
and  an  open  enthusiasm  for  all  good  knowledge,  as  great  as  if  he  were 
beginning  life  instead  of  closing  it I  passed  two  or  three  after 
noons  with  him.  His  conversation  was  always  without  effort  or  pre 
tension,  and  yet  full  of  knowledge,  elegant,  and  producing  a  charming 
effect.  I  think  he  came  nearer  to  my  notion  of  the  character  of  Mr. 
H.,  as  Mackenzie  has  drawn  the  better  parts  of  it,  than  anybody  I 
ever  met. 

I  breakfasted  with  Mackenzie  one  morning  at  Lady  Cumming's. 
He  is  now  old,  but  a  thin,  active,  lively  little  gentleman,  talking  fast 
and  well  upon  all  common  subjects,  and  without  the  smallest  indica 
tion  of  the  "  Man  of  Feeling "  about  him While  we  were  at 

breakfast  Lord  Elgin  came  in,  a  man  about  fifty,  and  as  fat,  round, 
stupid-looking  a  man  as  can  well  be  found.  The  little  he  said  justi 
fied  what  his  appearance  promised There  were  other  persons 

whom  I  knew  and  to  whose  houses  I  went, — 'Colonel  Ellice  and 

*  An  interesting  autobiography  of  Mrs.  Fletcher,  with  selections  from  her 
letters,  etc.,  has  been  published  by  her  family. 


280  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1819. 

the  Earl  of  Wemyss  among  the  fashionable  people,  and  among  the 
men  of  letters,  Pillans,  the  schoolmaster,  —  "  the  good  old  Dr.  Ander 
son,"  as  Southey  calls  him  in  the  "  Quarterly "  ;  Jeffrey,  who  was 
everywhere,  in  all  parties,  dances,  and  routs,  and  yet  found  time  for 
his  great  business,  and  was,  on  the  whole,  rather  pleasant  in  his  own 
house  ;  Dr.  Brown,  Stewart's  successor,  an  acute  man,  but  foolishly 
affecting  a  dapper  sort  of  elegance,  and  writing  poetry  just  above 
thread-paper  verses  ;  *  Thomson,  an  elegant  gentleman  and  scholar  ; 
and  Morehead,  at  whose  house  I  twice  saw  Dr.  Alison,  a  dignified^ 
mild,  and  gentlemanly  man.  Dugald  Stewart  was  in  Devonshire  for 
his  health,  both  mental  and  bodily  ;  and,  after  him,  I  have  but  one 
person  to  mention,  and  him  I  must  mention  separately.  I  mean. 
Walter  Scott. 

He  is,  indeed,  the  lord  of  the  ascendant  now  in  Edinburgh,  and 
well  deserves  to  be,  for  I  look  upon  him  to  be  quite  as  remarkable  in 
intercourse  and  conversation,  as  he  is  in  any  of  his  writings,  even  in  his 
novels.  He  is  now  about  forty-eight,  fully  six  feet  high,  stout  and 
well  made,  except  in  his  feet,  stoops  a  little,  and  besides  that  his  hairs 
are  pretty  gray,  he  carries  in  his  countenance  the  marks  of  coming 
age  and  infirmity,  which,  I  am  told,  have  increased  rapidly  in  the  last 
two  years.  His  countenance,  when  at  rest,  is  dull  and  almost  heavy, 
and  even  when  in  common  conversation  expresses  only  a  high  degree 
of  good-nature  ;  but  when  he  is  excited,  and  especially  when  he  is 
repeating  poetry  that  he  likes,  his  whole  expression  is  changed,  and 
his  features  kindle  into  a  brightness  of  which  there  were  no  traces 
before.  His  talent  was  developed  late.  Clerk,  the  advocate,  told  me 
that  Scott  hardly  wrote  poetry  in  his  youth,  and,  in  fact,  could  not 
easily  do  it,  for,  as  they  had  early  been  schoolfellows,  he  knew  this 
circumstance  well  ;  and  even  when  he  was  past  two-and-twenty, 
and  they  were  going  over  to  Fife  one  day  in  a  boat  together,  and 
tried  a  long  time  to  make  some  verses,  Scott  finally  gave  up  in 
despair,  saying,  "  Well,  it  is  clear  you  and  I  were  never  made  for 
poets." 

*  Dr.  Brown  sometimes  in  his  lectures  introduced  passages  of  poetry,  which 
he  recited  so  beautifully  that  the  students  applauded,  and  this  vexed  him,  because 
they  did  not  equally  applaud  the  lecture.  In  telling  this,  Mr.  Ticknor  would 
add,  as  another  instance  of  students'  whims,  that,  when  Germany  was  impov 
erished  by  the  wars  with  Napoleon,  if  a  professor  at  Jena  appeared  in  his 
lecture-room  with  a  new  waistcoat,  the  students  applauded  him  ;  and  the  old 
professor  at  Gdttingen,  who  spoke  of  this,  on  being  asked  by  Mr.  Ticknor  what 
occurred  if  a  new  coat  made  its  appearance,  exclaimed,  "  Gott  bewahre!  such  a 
thing  never  happened  !  " 


M.  27.]  WALTER  SCOTT.  281 

He  lives  in  a  style  of  considerable  elegance  in  the  city.*.  .  .  .  Sophia 
Scott  is  a  remarkable  girl,  about  eighteen  or  nineteen,  with  great  sim 
plicity  and  naturalness  of  manners,  not  a  remarkable  degree  of  talent, 
and  yet  full  of  enthusiasm  ;  with  tact  in  everything,  a  lover  of  old 
ballads,  a  Jacobite  ;  and,  in  short,  in  all  respects,  such  a  daughter  as 
Scott  ought  to  have  and  ought  to  be  proud  of.  And  he  is  proud  of 
her,  as  I  saw  again  and  again  when  he  could  not  conceal  it. 

One  evening,  after  dinner,  he  told  her  to  take  her  harp  and  play 
five  or  six  ballads  he  mentioned  to  her,  as  a  specimen  of  the  different 
ages  of  Scottish  music.  I  hardly  ever  heard  anything  of  the  kind  that 
moved  me  so  much.  And  yet,  I  imagine,  many  sing  better ;  but  I 
never  saw  such  an  air  and  manner,  such  spirit  and  feeling,  such  decis 
ion  and  power I  was  so  much  excited,  that  I  turned  round  to 

Mr.  Scott  and  said  to  him,  probably  with  great  emphasis,  "  I  never 
heard  anything  so  fine  "  ;  and  he,  seeing  how  involuntarily  I  had  said 
it,  caught,  me  by  the  hand,  and  replied,  very  earnestly,  "  Everybody 
says  so,  sir,"  but  added  in  an  instant,  blushing  a  little,  "  but  I  must 
not  be  too  vain  of  her." 

I  was  struck,  too,  with  another  little  trait  in  her  character  and  his, 
that  exhibited  itself  the  same  evening.  Lady  Hume  asked  her  to  play 
Rob  Roy,  an  old  ballad.  A  good  many  persons  were  present,  and  she 
felt  a  little  embarrassed  by  the  recollection  of  how  much  her  father's 
name  had  been  mentioned  in  connection  with  this  strange  Highland 
er's  ;  but,  as  upon  all  occasions,  she  took  the  most  direct  means  to 
settle  her  difficulties  ;  .  .  .  .  she  ran  across  the  room  to  her  father,  and, 
blushing  pretty  deeply,  whispered  to  him.  "  Yes,  my  dear,"  he  said, 
loud  enough  to  be  heard,  "  play  it,  to  be  sure,  if  you  are  asked,  and 
Waverley  and  the  Antiquary,  too,  if  there  be  any  such  ballads."  t 

One  afternoon,  after  I  had  become  more  acquainted  with  them,  he 
asked  me  to  come  and  dine,  and  afterwards  go  to  the  theatre  and 
hear  Rob  Roy,  —  a  very  good  piece  made  out  of  his  novel,  and  then 
playing  in  Edinburgh  with  remarkable  success.  It  was  a  great  treat, 
for  he  took  his  whole  family,  and  now  saw  it  himself  for  the  first 
time.  He  did  not  attempt  to  conceal  his  delight  during  the  whole 
performance,  and  when  it  was  over,  said  to  me,  "  That 's  fine,  sir  ;  I 
think  that  is  very  fine  "  ;  and  then  looked  up  at  me  with  one  of  his 

*  Whatever  passages,  in  the  account  of  his  intercourse  with  Scott,  have  been 
omitted,  contain  facts  made  familiar  by  Lockhart's  "  Life  of  Scott,"  or  state 
ments  afterwards  withdrawn  by  Mr.  Ticknor  in  a  note. 

t  The  authorship  of  the  novels  was  not  yet  acknowledged,  of  course,  though 
generally  believed. 


282  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1819. 

most  comical  Scotch  expressions  of  face,  half-way  between  cunning 
and  humor,  and  added,  "  All  I  wish  is,  that  Jedediah  Cleishbotham 
could  be  here  to  enjoy  it !  " 

I  met  him  in  court  one  morning,  when  he  was  not  occupied,  and  he 
proposed  to  take  a  walk  with  me.  He  carried  me  round  and  showed 
me  the  houses  of  Ferguson,  Blair,  Hume,  Smith,  Robertson,  Black, 
and  several  others,  telling,  at  the  same  time,  amusing  anecdotes  of 
these  men,  and  bringing  out  a  story  for  almost  every  lane  and  close 
we  passed  ;  explained  and  defended  more  at  large  the  opinion  he  has 
advanced  in  "  Guy  Mannering,"  that  the  days  of  these  men  were  the 
golden  days  of  Edinburgh,  and  that  we  live  in  the  decline  of  society 
there.  I  am  not  certain  we  do  not ;  but  I  was  never  less  disposed  to 
acknowledge  it  than  at  that  moment. 


Among  other  anecdotes,  Mr.  Scott  told  me  *  that  he  once  travelled 
with  Tom  Campbell  in  a  stage-coach  alone,  and  that,  to  beguile  the 
time,  they  talked  of  poetry  and  began  to  repeat  some.  At  last  Scott 
asked  Campbell  for  something  of  his  own,  and  he  said  there  was  one 
thing  he  had  written  but  never  printed,  that  was  full  of  "  drums  and 
trumpets  and  blunderbusses  and  thunder,"  and  he  did  n't  know  if 
there  was  anything  good  in  it.  And  then  he  repeated  "  Hohenlin- 
•den."  Scott  listened  with  the  greatest  interest,  and  when  he  had  fin 
ished,  broke  lout,  "  But,  do  you  know,  that 's  devilish  fine  ;  why,  it 's 
the  finest  thing  you  ever  wrote,  and  it  must  be  printed !  " 


On  Monday,  March  15,  early  in  the  morning,  I  left  Edinburgh.  I 
was  not  alone,  for  Cogswell  came  with  me,  and  we  had  a  pleasant 
drive  of  six  or  seven  hours  down  into  the  Border  country,  and  finally 
stopped  at  Kelso,  a  pleasant  town  on  the  beautiful  banks  of  the 
Tweed.  We  went  immediately  to  see  the  ruins  of  the  old  abbey 

March  16.  —  Two  miles  farther  on  [beyond  Melrose]  is  the  magi 
cian's  own  house,  —  Scott's,  I  mean,  or  the  "  sherrie's,'  as  the  postilion 
called  him,  because  he  is  sheriff  of  the  county,  —  as  odd-looking  a 
thing  as  can  well  be  seen,  neither  house  nor  castle,  ancient  nor  mod 
ern,  nor  an  imitation  of  either,  but  a  complete  nondescript.t  The 
situation  is  not  very  good,  though  on  the  bank  of  the  Tweed  and 
opposite  the  entrance  of  the  Gala,  for  it  is  under  a  hill  and  has  little 

*  This  anecdote  was  dictated  by  Mr.  Ticknor  in  later  years. 

f  It  was  still  a  cottage  in  dimensions,  very  different  from  the  later  erection. 


JE.  27.]  ABBOTSFORD.  283 

prospect ;  but  there  is  a  kindness  and  hospitality  there  which  are 
better  than  anything  else,  and  make  everything  else  forgotten.  We 
had  come  down  on  an  invitation  to  pass  as  much  time  with  him  as 
we  could,  and  were  received  with  the  simple  good-nature  and  good 
spirits  which  I  have  constantly  found  in  his  house.  Mrs.  Scott  was 
not  there,  nor  either  of  the  sans The  establishment,  there 
fore,  consisted  of  Mr.  Scott,  his  two  girls,  Sophia  and  Anne,  and  Mr. 
Skeene,  to  whom  he  has  dedicated  one  of  the  cantos  of  "  Marmion." 

Mr.  Scott  himself  was  more  amusing  here  than  I  had  found  him 
even  in  town.  He  seemed,  like  Antaeus,  to  feel  that  he  touched  a 
kindred  earth,  and  to  quicken  into  new  life  by  its  influences.  The 
Border  country  is  indeed  the  natural  home  of  his  talent,  and  it  is 
when  walking  with  him  over  his  own  hills  and  through  his  own 
valleys,  ....  and  in  the  bosom  and  affections  of  his  own  family, 
that  he  is  all  you  can  imagine  or  desire  him  to  be.  His  house  itself 
is  a  kind  of  collection  of  fragments  of  history  ;  architectural  orna 
ments,  —  copies  from  Melrose  in  one  part,  the  old  identical  gate  of 
the  Tolbooth,  or  rather  the  stone  part  of  it,  through  which  the 
Porteous  mob  forced  its  way,  in  another,  —  an  old  fountain  before  the 
house,  and  odd  inscriptions  and  statues  everywhere,  make  such  a 
kind  of  irregular,  poetical  habitation  as  ought  to  belong  to  him. 
Then  for  every  big  stone  on  his  estate,  as  well  as  for  all  the  great 
points  of  the  country  about,  he  has  a  tradition  or  a  ballad,  which  he 
repeats  with  an  enthusiasm  that  kindles  his  face  to  an  animation  that 
forms  a  singular  contrast  to  the  quiet  in  which  it  usually  rests. 

Sophia  shares  and  enjoys  these  local  feelings  and  attachments,  and 
can  tell  as  many  Border  stories  as  her  father,  and  repeat  perhaps  as 
many  ballads,  and  certainly  more  Jacobite  songs.  She  is,  indeed,  in 
some  respects',  an  extraordinary  person.  There  is  nothing  romantic 
about  her,  for  she  is  as  perfectly  right-minded  as  I  ever  saw  one  so 
young  ;  and,  indeed,  perhaps  right-mindedness  is  the  prevailing  fea 
ture  in  her  character.  She  has  no  uncommon  talent,  and  yet  I  am 
sure  he  must  have  little  taste  or  feeling  who  could  find  her  conversa 
tion  dull ;  she  is  not  beautiful,  though  after  seeing  her  several  times 
in  company  with  those  handsomer  than  herself,  I  found  my  eye  at 
last  rested  with  most  pleasure  on  the  playful  simplicity  and  natural 
openness  of  her  countenance Anne  is  younger,  no  less  natu 
ral,  and  perhaps  has  more  talent,  and  is  generally  thought  prettier  ; 
but  nobody,  I  think,  places  her  in  competition  with  her  sister.  .... 

Nobody  came  to  Abbotsford  while  we  stayed  there,  and  of  course 
we  had  a  happy  time.  The  breakfast-hour  was  nine,  and  after  that 


284:  LIFE  OP  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1819. 

we  all  walked  out  together  and  heard  any  number  of  amusing  stories, 
for  Mr.  Scott  has  a  story  for  everything  ;  and  so  we  continued  walk 
ing  about  and  visiting  till  nearly  dinner-time,  at  half  past  four.  As 
soon  as  we  were  seated  the  piper  struck  up  a  pibroch  before  the  win 
dows,  dressed  in  his  full  Highland  costume,  and  one  of  the  best- 
looking  and  most  vain,  self-sufficient  dogs  I  ever  saw  ;  and  he  con 
tinued  walking  about,  and  playing  on  his  bagpipes  until  the  dessert 
arrived,  when  he  was  called  in,  received  his  dram,  and  was  dis 
missed.  Mr.  Scott  likes  to  sit  at  table  and  talk,  and  therefore  dinner, 
or  rather  the  latter  part  of  it,  was  long.  Coffee  followed,  and  then 
in  a  neighboring  large  room  the  piper  was  heard  again,  and  we  all 
went  in  and  danced  Scotch  reels  till  we  were  tired.  An  hour's  con 
versation  afterwards  brought  us  to  ten  o'clock  and  supper ;  and  two 
very  short  and  gay  hours  at  the  supper-table,  or  by  the  fire,  brought 
us  to  bedtime. 

I  delighted  to  talk  with  these  original  creatures  about  themselves 
and  one  another,  for  they  do  it  with  simplicity,  and  often  make 
curious  remarks.  Mr.  Scott  gave  me  an  odd  account  of  the  educa 
tion  of  his  whole  family.  His  great  object  has  always  been,  not  to 
over-educate,  and  to  follow  the  natural  indications  of  character,  rather 
than  to  form  other  traits.  The  strongest  instance  is  his  son  Walter,  a 
young  man  with  little  talent ;  "  and  so,"  said  Mr.  Scott,  "  I  gave  him 
as  much  schooling  as  I  thought  would  do  him  good,  and  taught  him 
to  ride  well,  and  shoot  well,  and  tell  the  truth  ;  and  I  think  now  that 
he  will  make  a  good  soldier,  and  serve  his  country  well,  instead  of  a 
poor  scholar  or  advocate,  doing  no  good  to  himself  or  anybody  else." 
Sophia,  however,  did  not  seem  to  be  quite  well  satisfied  with  her 
father's  system  of  education  in  some  respects.  "He's  always  just 
telling  us  our  faults,"  said  she,  with  her  little  Scotch  accent  and 
idiom,  "but  never  takes  such  very  serious  pains  to  have  us  mend. 
I  think  sometimes  he  would  like  to  have  us  different  from  other  girls 
and  boys,  even  though  it  should  be  by  having  us  worse."  .... 

But  the  visit  that  began  so  happily,  and  continued  for  two  days  so 
brightly,  had  a  sad  close.  During  the  second  night  Mr.  Scott  was 
seized  with  violent  spasms  in  his  stomach,  which  could  be  controlled 
neither  by  laudanum  nor  bleeding.  A  surgeon  was  sent  for,  who 
continued  with  him  all  night,  ....  and  the  next  morning  the 
family  was  filled  with  the  most  cruel  apprehensions,  for  though  he 
has  been  subject  to  such  attacks,  none  had  come  on  with  such 
violence.  We  therefore  abruptly  ended  our  visit  a  day  sooner  than 
we  intended,  and  crossed  to  the  main  road  at  Selkirk,  where  I  had  a 
very  sad  parting  from  Cogswell. 


M.  27.]  SOUTHEY.  285 

March  18 Early  the  next  morning  I  set  off  for  Keswick, 

and  in  about  twelve  miles  found  myself  already  in  the  broken  moun 
tainous  country  that  prepares  an  approach  to  the  lakes My 

drive,  though  through  a  country  so  interesting,  had  been  sad,  for  I 
have  now  little  that  will  cheer  me  when  I  am  left  in  solitude,  and  I 
know  not  when  I  have  been  more  deserted  by  all  decent  courage,  than 
I  was  at  the  moment  I  entered  Mr.  Southey's  door.  The  kindness 
of  his  reception  gave  me  the  first  glad  feeling  I  had  had,  from  the 
time  I  left  Cogswell  at  Selkirk. 

Mr.  Southey  introduced  me  to  Mrs.  Coleridge,  a  good  respectable- 
looking  lady  of  five-and-forty,  her  daughter,*  a  sweet  creature  of 
uncommon  beauty  and  gentleness,  not  quite  sixteen,  and  his  own 
family  of  daughters,  the  eldest  of  whom,  Edith,  has  some  of  his 
own  peculiar  rapidity  of  mind,  and  Isabella,  the  fourth,  only  six 
years  old,  who  has  a  bewitching  mischievous  beauty,  which  came 
from  I  know  not  where.  After  dinner  he  carried  me  into  his  study, 
and  spread  out  a  quantity  of  his  literary  projects  before  me,  —  his 
"  Life  of  Wesley,"  which  is  in  the  press,  his  "  Brazil,"  to  be  finished 
in  a  month,  his  "  Spanish  War,"  to  which  he  has  prefixed  an  inter 
esting  preface  on  the  moral  state  of  England,  France,  and  Spain, 
between  1789  and  1808  ;  and,  finally,  a  poem  on  the  War  of  Philip,  — 
not  him  of  Macedon,  but  our  own  particular  Philip,  recorded  by 
Hubbard  and  Church,  —  and  as  this  is  more  interesting  to  an  Ameri 
can  than  any  other  of  the  works,  it  is  the  one  I  most  carefully  fol 
lowed,  as  he  read  me  all  he  has  written  of  it.t  He  has,  however, 
finished  only  six  hundred  of  the  six  thousand  lines  that  are  to  compose 
it,  rhymed,  and'  in  various  measure,  but  not  so  elaborately  irregular  as 
the  versification  of  "  Kehama,"  though  the  same  principle  is  adopted 

of  addressing  the  metre  to  the  ear  rather  than  to  the  eye 

We  sat  up  very  late,  and  talked  a  great  deal  upon  all  sorts  of  subjects, 
especially  America,  Spain,  and  Portugal,  for  these,  and  particularly 
the  last,  are  his  favorite  topics  and  studies. 

The  next  morning  he  carried  me  to  see  the  principal  beauties  of  the 
neighborhood,  and,  among  other  things,  the  point  where  Gray  stood 
when  he  enjoyed  the  prospect  described  in  one  of  his  letters,  and  the 

*  Afterwards  Mrs.  Henry  Nelson  Coleridge. 

t  "  Oliver  Newman  "  was  left  unfinished.  Mr.  Southey  promised  Mr.  Tick- 
nor  the  autograph  manuscript  of  this  poem  when  it  should  have  been  published, 
and  this  promise  was  remembered  and  redeemed,  after  the  poet's  death,  by  his 
children.  Mr.  Ticknor  had  a  pleasant  correspondence  with  him  for  some  years, 
and  some  of  the  letters  from  Southey  appear  in  his  Memoirs. 


286  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1819. 

island  in  the  lake,  from  which  our  Franklin,  who  was  then  staying  at 
the  house  of  a  gentleman  here,  made  his  first  experiment  of  pouring 

oil  on  troubled  waters Southey  was  pleasant  during  the  walk 

and  still  more  so  at  dinner  and  in  the  evening,  talking  with  great 
rapidity  ;  for  the  quickness  of  his  mind  expresses  itself  in  the  fluency 
of  his  utterance,  and  yet  he  is  ready  upon  almost  any  subject  that 
can  be  proposed  to  him,  from  the  extent  of  his  knowledge.  In  the 
evening  he  opened  to  me  more  great  bundles  of  manuscript  mate 
rials,  his  "  History  of  Portugal,"  the  work  on  which  he  thinks  he 
can  most  safely  rest  his  claims  with  posterity,  his  "  History  of  the 
Portuguese  East  Indies,"  a  necessary  appendix  and  consequence  of  it, 
etc.,  etc.  ;  in  short,  as  he  himself  said,  more  than  the  whole  amount 
of  all  he  has  published.  He  is  certainly  an  extraordinary  man,  one 
of  those  whose  character  I  find  it  difficult  to  comprehend,  because 
I  hardly  know  how  such  elements  can  be  brought  together,  such 
rapidity  of  mind  with  such  patient  labor  and  wearisome  exactness, 
so  mild  a  disposition  with  so  much  nervous  excitability,  and  a  poet 
ical  talent  so  elevated  with  such  an  immense  mass  of  minute,  dull 
learning.  He  considers  himself  completely  an  author  by  profession, 
and  therefore,  as  he  told  me,  never  writes  anything  which  will  not 
sell,  in  the  hours  he  regularly  devotes  to  labor.  For  this  reason,  his 
poetry  has  been  strictly  his  amusement,  and  therefore,  as  he  is  for 
bidden  early  rising  by  his  physician,  he  has  taken  the  time  before 
breakfast  for  his  Muse,  — which  cannot  be  above  half  an  hour  or  an 
hour,  —  and  has  not  allowed  himself  any  other.  When  I  add  that 
his  light  reading  after  supper  is  now  in  the  fifty-three  folios  of  the 
"  Acta  Sanctorum,"  I  have  given  to  myself  an  idea  of  industry  such 
as  I  never  saw  but  in  Germany  before. 

After  all,  however,  my  recollections  of  Southey  rest  rather  on  his 
domestic  life  and  his  character  as  a  man,  for  here  he  seems  to  me  to 
be  truly  excellent  ....  His  family  now  consists  of  Mrs.  Lovell ;  Mrs. 
Coleridge  and  her  beautiful  daughter,  who  is  full  of  genius,  and  to 
whom  he  has  given  an  education  that  enables  her,  in  defiance  of  an 
alarming  degree  of  modesty,  to  speak  of  Virgil,  Cervantes,  and  Dante 
as  familiar  acquaintance  ;  and  his  own  excellent  wile,*  with  six  fine 
children,  who  are  half  his  occupation  and  more  than  half  his  pride 
and  delight,  all  living  in  affection  and  harmony  together,  and  all  sup 
ported  by  the  exercise  of  his  talents,  in  a  gentlemanlike  establishment, 
where,  besides  an  ample  library,  he  has  the  comforts  and  a  great  many 

*  Mr.  Ticknor  did  not  see  Mrs.  Southey,  her  infant  son,  whose  cradle  was  in 
his  father's  library  at  this  time,  being  only  three  weeks  old. 


M.  27.]  WORDSWORTH.  287 

of  the  luxuries  of  life.  I  have  seen  few  men  who  I  thought  better 
fulfilled  the  character  Heaven  destined  to  them  than  Southey 

March  21.  —  An  extremely  pleasant  drive  of  sixteen  miles  .... 
brought  me  to  Wordsworth's  door,  on  a  little  elevation,  commanding 

a  view  of  Kydal  water It  is  claimed  to  be  the  most  beautiful 

spot  and  the  finest  prospect  in  the  lake  country,  and,  even  if  there  be 
finer,  it  would  be  an  ungrateful  thing  to  remember  them  here,  where, 
if  anywhere,  the  eye  and  the  heart  ought  to  be  satisfied.  Wordsworth 
knew  from  Southey  that  I  was  coming,  and  therefore  met  me  at  the 
door  and  received  me  heartily.  He  is  about  fifty  three  or  four,  with 
a  tall,  ample,  well-proportioned  frame,  a  grave  and  tranquil  manner, 
a  Roman  cast  of  appearance,  and  Roman  dignity  and  simplicity.  He 
presented  me  to  his  wife,  a  good,  very  plain  woman,  who  seems  to 
regard  him  with  reverence  and  affection,  and  to  his  sister,  not  much 
younger  than  himself,  with  a  good  deal  of  spirit  and,  I  should  think, 
more  than  common  talent  and  knowledge.  I  was  at  home  with  them 
at  once,  and  we  went  out  like  friends  together  to  scramble  up  the 

mountains,  and  enjoy  the  prospects  and  scenery We  returned  to 

dinner,  which  was  very  simple,  for,  though  he  has  an  office  under 
the  government  and  a  patrimony  besides,  yet  each  is  inconsiderable 

His  conversation  surprised  me  by  being  so  different  from  all  I  had 
anticipated.  It  was  exceedingly  simple,  strictly  confined  to  subjects 
he  understood  familiarly,  and  more  marked  by  plain  good- sense  than 
by  anything  else.  When,  however,  he  came  upon  poetry  and  reviews, 
he  was  the  Khan  of  Tartary  again,  and  talked  as  metaphysically 
and  extravagantly  as  ever  Coleridge  wrote  ;  but,  excepting  this,  it  was 
really  a  consolation  to  hear  him.  It  was  best  of  all,  though,  to  see 

how  he  is  loved  and  respected  in  his  family  and  neighborhood 

The  peasantry  treated  him  with  marked  respect,  the  children  took 
off  their  hats  to  him,  and  a  poor  widow  in  the  neighborhood  sent  to 
him  to  come  and  talk  to  her  son,  who  had  been  behaving  ill.  .... 

In  the  evening  he  showed  me  his  manuscripts,  the  longest  a  kind  of 
poetical  history  of  his  life,  which,  in  the  course  of  about  two  octavo 
volumes  of  manuscript,  he  has  brought  to  his  twenty-eighth  year, 
and  of  which  the  "  Excursion  "  is  a  fragment.  It  is  in  blank- verse, 
and,  as  far  as  I  read,  what  has  been  published  is  a  fair  specimen  of 
what  remains  in  manuscript.  He  read  me  "  Peter  Bell,  the  Potter," 
a  long  tale,  with  many  beauties  but  much  greater  defects  ;  and  another 
similar  story,  "  The  Waggoner."  ....  The  whole  amused  me  a  good 
deal ;  it  was  a  specimen  of  the  lake  life,  doctrines,  and  manners,  more 
perfect  than  I  had  found  at  Southey's,  and,  as  such,  was  very  curious. 


288  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1819. 

We  sat  up,  therefore,  late,  and  talked  a  great  deal  about  the  living 
poets.  Of  Scott  he  spoke  with  much  respect  as  a  man,  and  of  his 
works  with  judicious  and  sufficient  praise.  For  Campbell  he  did  not 
seem  to  have  so  much  regard  ;  and  for  Lord  Byron  none  at  all,  since, 
though  he  admired  his  talent,  he  seemed  to  have  a  deep-rooted  abhor 
rence  of  his  character,  and  besides,  I  thought,  felt  a  little  bitterness 
against  him  for  having  taken  something  of  his  own  lakish  manner 
lately,  and,  what  is  worse,  borrowed  some  of  his  thoughts.  On  the 
whole,  however,  he  seemed  fairly  disposed  to  do  justice  to  his  contem 
poraries  and  rivals In  the  morning  early  I  recommenced  my 

journey 

March  23.  — At  Birmingham  I  took  a  post-chaise  and  went  on,  and 
slept  at  Hatton,  —  old  Dr.  Parr's.  This  was  another  pleasant  literary 
visit.  The  old  gentleman  received  me  with  kindness,  and  recognized 
me  at  once.  I  had  a  letter  to  him,  but  it  was  not  necessary,  as  he 
remembered  me.  Since  I  saw  him,  age  has  laid  a  heavy  hand  upon 

him,  and  he  has  bent  under  it His  mind,  however,  seems  to 

have  remained  untouched.  He  is  still  as  zealous  as  ever  ;  dogmatizes 
in  politics  with  all  his  former  passion,  and  gives  himself  up,  perhaps, 
rather  more  to  his  prejudices,  which  cling  closer  to  his  character,  as 
the  moss  clings  closer  to  the  rock,  until  at  last  it  seems  to  identify 
itself  with  it.  He  talked  a  great  deal  of  the  literary  establishments 
in  Great  Britain ;  seemed  to  despise  Edinburgh,  where,  he  said,  you 
would  not  get  so  much  knowledge  at  a  lecture  as  you  would  in  the 
same  time  at  an  English  gentleman's  dinner-table  ;  preferred  Ox 
ford  to  Cambridge,  though  he  is  a  Cantabrigian  ;  spoke  with  galling 
contempt  of  Monk  ;  and,  in  short,  seemed  disposed  to  spare  very  little 
that  came  in  his  way. 

His  politics  were  even  more  outrageous.  He  still  praised  Bona 
parte,  and  entered  into  a  defence  of  General  Jackson  and  his  Indian 
warfare  in  Florida,  and  seemed  equally  discontented  with  the  Minis 
try  and  the  Opposition,  at  home.  Yet  there  is  evidently  not  a  real 
bitterness  in  his  feelings.  He  differs  from  most  persons,  even  among 
his  friends,  but  the  reason  is  chiefly  that  he  has  lived  so  little  in  the 
world  as  hardly  to  be  a  part  of  it,  and  if  he  has  any  relationships, 
they  are  to  an  age  that  for  us  has  gone  by,  of  which  he  seems  a  rude 

but  an  imposing  relic Setting  his  learning  aside,  —  where  he 

still  stands  alone  among  English  scholars,  —  there  are  two  traits  in 
his  character  which  would  redeem  greater  faults  ;  I  mean  his  kindness, 
and  the  prevalent  sense  of  religion,  which  seems  always  to  be  upon 
him;  even  when  he  is  talking  in  his  angriest  moods.  I  felt  both  when 


JR.  27.]  SIR  JAMES  MACKINTOSH.  289 

I  left  him,  and  he  said,  "  I  wish  you  would  stay  some  days  with  me. 
We  should  have  a  great  deal  of  good  talk  together  ;  but  if  you  ever 
come  into  this  country  again,  I  claim  a  week  from  you.  But  I  am 
old,  very  old  ;  I  shall  probably  be  gathered  to  the  great  company  of 
the  dead,  and,  I  trust,  to  a  better  company  in  heaven  ;  so  that  all  I 
may  give  you  now  is  the  blessing  of  an  old  man,  who  wishes  you  well 
with  all  his  heart." 

To  MR.  ELISHA  TICKNOR. 

LONDON,  April  3, 1819. 

It  is  about  a  week,  I  think,  since  I  wrote  to  you,  my  dear  father, 
from  Oxford.  I  passed  only  two  days  at  the  great  university,  for  it 
is  now  important  to  me,  above  everything  else,  to  be  in  London  to 
make  my  purchases  of  English  books,  and  finish  all  I  have  to  do 
in  Europe  ;  and  if  I  have  any  time  left,  I  can  stop  at  Oxford  again 
on  my  way  to  Liverpool 

I  am  very  busy,  not  with  study,  —  for  I  have  not  pretended  to  study 
a  word  regularly  since  I  left  Scotland,  —  but  in  making  all  my  last 
preparations  for  quitting  Europe.  Nobody  can  know  how  many  last 
things  are  to  be  done  at  the  finishing  a  great  work  that  has  continued 
four  years,  except  one  who  has  passed  through  it.  I  have  two  book 
sellers  employed,  and  am  all  the  time  running  about  myself,  and  I 
think  in  a  fortnight  I  shall  have  everything  of  this  sort  done  ;  and, 
though  it  is  a  pretty  close  calculation,  think  I  shall  arrive  in  Liver 
pool  on  the  first  of  May.  If  it  be  possible  to  get  a  good  ship  for  Bos 
ton,  I  should  much  prefer  it,  but  rather  than  wait  I  would  embark  in 
one  of  the  regular  New  York  packets,  that  are  the  finest  vessels  in 

the  world Six  weeks,  I  learn,  is  the  shortest  time  I  can  hope 

for,  and  I  suppose  fifty  days  is  what  we  are  to  calculate  upon.  I 
mention  all  these  facts,  my  dear  father,  that  you  may  not  make  to 

yourselves  a  disappointment  by  expecting  me  too  soon This  is 

among  the  last  letters  that  I  shall  write  to  you.  I  count  the  days 
before  I  shall  embark,  and  shall  soon  count  the  hours. 

Farewell. 

GEO. 
JOURNAL. 

While  I  was  in  London  this  time,  I  saw  a  good  deal  of  Sir  James 
Mackintosh,  who  spent  a  part  of  the  winter  at  Lord  Holland's, 
the  house  I  most  frequented.  In  consequence  of  this,  Sir  James 
was  kind  enough  to  invite  me  to  visit  him  at  Haileybury,  where  he 

VOL.  i.  13  s 


290  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1S19. 

has  a  comfortable  and  somewhat  ample  establishment,  near  the  East 
India  College,  of  which  he  is,  as  everybody  knows,  a  professor.  He 
is  agreeable  everywhere,  but  more  so  at  home,  I  suspect,  than  any 
where  else. 

It  was  a  small  party  in  honor  of  the  wedding  of  Sismondi,  who  had, 
a  few  days  earlier,  married  a  sister  of  Lady  Mackintosh,  Miss  Allen, 
a  cultivated  lady,  who,  with  her  two  sisters,  I  had  seen  often  at  Rome, 
and  whom  I  felt  that  I  already  knew  pretty  well.  Sismondi,  too,  I 
had  known  at  Paris,  in  the  society  of  the  De  Broglies  and  De  Staels, 
during  the  preceding  winter.  To  these  were  added  Lord  John  Rus 
sell,  and  Malthus,  who  is  attached  to  the  same  college  with  Sir  James. 
It  was,  therefore,  a  party  well  calculated  to  call  out  each  other's  facul 
ties  and  to  interest  a  stranger.  Lord  John  was  more  amusing  than 
I  had  known  him  in  London  or  at  Woburn.  Sismondi,  with  his  new 
born  gallantry,  very  gracious  but  not  very  graceful,  undoubtedly  did 
his  best,  for  he  was  brought  into  direct  contact  with  Malthus,  from 
whose  doctrines  he  had  differed  in  his  own  treatise  on  the  same  sub 
ject,  recently  published ;  while  Sir  James,  who  delights  in  the  stir 
and  excitement  of  intellectual  discussion,  seemed  to  amuse  himself 
by  beating  round  on  all  sides,  now  answering  Lord  John  with  a  story 
of  the  last  century,  now  repeating  poetry  to  Mrs.  Sismondi,  and  now 
troubling  the  discussion  of  the  eminent  political  economists  with  his 
ponderous  knowledge  of  history,  statistics,  and  government,  in  short, 
the  subjects  on  which  all  three  were  most  familiar  and  oftenest  dif 
fered.  Malthus  is,  what  anybody  might  anticipate,  a  plain  man,  with 
plain  manners,  apparently  troubled  by  few  prejudices,  and  not  much 
by  the  irritability  of  authorship,  but  still  talking  occasionally  with 
earnestness.  In  general,  however,  I  thought  he  needed  opposition, 
but  he  rose  to  the  occasion,  whatever  it  might  be. 

But  Sir  James  led  in  everything,  and  seemed  more  interested  and 
more  agreeable  than  I  had  seen  him  in  London  society.  I  suppose 
that,  on  the  whole,  I  have  never  met  with  an  Englishman  whose  con 
versation  was  more  richly  nourished  with  knowledge,  at  once  elegant 
and  profrmnd,  if  I  ever  met  with  one  who  was  his  equal.  What  is 
best  in  modern  letters  and  culture  seems  to  have  passed  through  his 
mind  and  given  a  peculiar  raciness  to  what  he  says.  His  allusions 
to  his  reading  are  almost  as  abundant  as  Scott's,  and,  if  they  are  not 
poured  out  so  rapidly  or  with  such  wasteful  carelessness,  it  is,  per 
haps,  because  he  has  an  extraordinary  grace  in  his  manner  of  intro 
ducing  them,  and  a  sort  of  skilful  finish  in  all  he  says. 

Malthus,  living  in  the  neighborhood,  went  home  at  the  end  of  the 


JE.  27.]  A  LONDON  AUDIENCE.  291 

evening  ;  but  the  rest  of  us  sat  up  late  to  listen  to  Sir  James,  who 
talked  under  excitement,  to  Lord  John  and  Sismondi,  of  the  time  of 
Warren  Hastings'  trial,  and  of  his  acquaintance  afterward  with  Burke, 
including  his  visit  to  Beaconsfield,  with  great  interest  and  animation. 
Even  after  I  went  to  bed  these  great  names,  with  those  of  Windham 
and  Sheridan,  rang  in  my  ears  for  a  long  time,  and  kept  me  awake 
till  the  daylight  broke  through  my  windows.  The  next  morning  I 
returned  to  London,  taking  in  my  post-chaise  Mr.  Sismondi,  whom 
I  saw  more  of  in  the  following  days,  going  with  him,  among  other 
places,  to  Lord  Holland's,  where  he  enjoyed  the  society  very  much 


One  show  that  I  took  some  pains  to  see  in  London  was,  to  be  sure, 
very  different  from  the  others,  but  still  very  curious.  Mr.  Washington 
Irving  and  I  went  together  to  see  the  damning  of  a  play  called  "  The 
Italians,"  *  which  had  been  acted  two  nights,  amidst  such  an  uproar 
that  it  was  impossible  to  determine  whether  the  piece  were  accepted 
or  not ;  and  so  it  was  now  brought  forward,  avowedly  for  final  adju 
dication.  The  house  was  filled  ;  though,  as  a  riot  had  been  foreseen, 
few  ladies  were  there.  Before  the  curtain  rose,  Stephen  Kemble,  the 
manager,  —  a  very  respectable  looking  old  man,  with  the  marks  of 
infirmity  strong  upon  him,  —  came  forward,  but  was  received  with 
such  shouting  and  hooting  by  the  pit,  who  thought  the  play  ought  to 
have  been  withdrawn,  that  he  was  not  heard  for  a  long  time.  At  last 
his  venerable  appearance  and  humble  manner  seemed  to  have  softened 
the  hard  hearts  of  the  mob  a  little  ;  and,  after  many  bows,  he  was 
allowed,  though  not  without  several  indecent  interruptions,  to  read  a 
short  address,  promising,  if  the  play  was  condemned,  that  it  should 
be  immediately  withdrawn,  though  still  begging  a  fair  hearing.  Of 
the  last  there  seemed  to  be  some  doubt. 

The  curtain  rose  and  the  actors  began,  but  they  were  received  with 
indignant  cries  and  showers  of  orange-peels.  They  persisted,  how 
ever,  and  the  house  grew  quieter.  The  pit,  indeed,  seemed  disposed 
to  come  to  a  compromise,  and  wait  till  the  conclusion  before  it  should 
enter  into  the  exercise  of  its  rights  of  condemnation.  Still,  it  was 
apparent  that  the  piece  was  already  judged  and  sentenced,  for  every 
time  that  an  actor  said  anything  that  could  be  forced  to  a  bad  sense, 
the  audience  took  advantage  of  it.  If  he  groaned,  they  groaned  with 
comical  dolorousness  ;  if  he  complained,  they  complained  most  perti 
naciously  with  him ;  and  the  words  "  'T  is  shameful,"  "  'T  ia  villanous," 

*  "  The  Italians  ;  or,  The  Fatal  Accusation,"  a  tragedy  by  Mr.  Bucke. 


292  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1819. 

were  echoed  several  minutes  by  most  of  the  pit,  standing  on  the 
benches  and  swinging  their  hats,  and  crying  out  as  loud  as  their  voices 
would  permit.  In  this  way,  perhaps  about  one  third  of  what  was 
spoken  might  have  been  heard  during  the  three  first  acts  ;  the  rest 
passed  only  in  dumb  show,  drowned  in  the  universal  uproar. 

At  the  end  of  the  third  act  the  half-prices  came  in,  as  usual.  They 
had  not  heard  the  address,  and  knew  nothing  of  the  tacit  compact 
between  the  pit  and  the  manager  ;  or,  if  they  did,  they  cared  nothing 
about  it.  The  moment  the  curtain  rose  for  the  fourth  act,  cries  of 
"  Off!  Off  !  "  prevailed  over  all  others,  and  half  the  time  the  body  of 
the  pit  was  jumping  on  the  benches,  and  making  an  uproar  that  was 
almost  sufficient  to  burst  the  ears  of  those  in  the  boxes.  The  actors 
hurried  on,  skipped  apparently  half  their  parts,  since  not  a  syllable 
could  be  heard,  and  finally  concluded  in  pantomime.  When  it  was 
finished,  the  uproar,  which  I  thought  before  as  intense  as  it  could  be, 
seemed  to  be  doubled.  Several  persons  came  forward  to  speak,  but 
could  not  be  heard.  Hunt,  who  sat  two  boxes  from  us,  collected  a 
little  audience  and  declaimed  a  few  moments,  but  to  very  little  pur 
pose,  for  those  more  than  ten  feet  from  him  were  only  spectators  of 
his  furious  manner  ;  and  all  parts  of  the  house  seemed  about  breaking 
forth  into  an  outrageous  riot.  The  only  way  anybody's  opinion  could 
be  known  was  by  placards,  and  many  had  come  provided  with  them, 
and  hoisted  them  on  their  canes  or  umbrellas.  Some  were,  "  Damn  the 
Italians,"  "Are  not  three  times  enough,  Mr.  Manager?"  Others  were 
in  favor  of  the  play  ;  and  one,  alluding  to  Kean's  steady  opposition  to 
it  and  bad  behavior  after  its  reception,  was,  "  Will  the  justice  of  an 
English  public  permit  a  deserving  author  to  be  condemned,  without 
a  hearing,  by  a  blackguard  actor  and  his  vulgar  pot  companions  ?".... 

At  length  the  venerable  old  manager  appeared.  He  made  a  dozen 
of  his  humblest  bows,  but  in  vain.  He  stretched  out  his  hand,  as  if 
beseeching  to  be  heard,  and  was  answered  only  by  louder  and  more 
vulgar  outcries,  ....  and  he  was  obliged  to  go  off  without  having  pro 
nounced  an  audible  word,  after  standing  before  his  inexorable  masters 
in  that  awkward  and  degrading  situation  above  a  quarter  of  an  hour. 
He  was  followed  by  a  burst  of  indignation  that  made  the  house  almost 
tremble.  An  instant  afterwards  the  curtain  rose  and  a  blackboard 
was  discovered,  on  which  was  written  in  chalk,  "  '  The  Italians '  is  with 
drawn."  A  shout  of  exultation,  that  deserved  to  be  called  savage,  suc 
ceeded,  and  the  pit  relapsed  into  a  kind  of  hollow  calm  that  ill  con 
cealed  a  busy  brooding  that  lurked  beneath.  The  party  that  had 
been  defeated  was  determined  not  to  yield. 


j&.  27.]  LORD  MAYOR'S  BALL.  293 

[The  afterpiece  was  reduced  to  pantomime  by  tumult  and  orange- 
peels],  and  at  midnight  we  still  left  the  audience  shouting,  quarrelling, 
and  tearing  up  the  benches,  all  which,  the  newspapers  the  following 
day  informed  us,  was  continued  some  time,  and  was  finally  broken  up 
by  throwing  pails  of  water  from  the  gallery  into  the  pit 

As  we  had  passed  so  much  of  the  evening  with  the  mob,  we  thought 
we  would  finish  the  remainder  of  it  with  them,  and  went  from  the 
theatre  to  the  Lord  Mayor's  ball.  There  were,  I  suppose,  about  three 
or  four  thousand  people  there ;  but,  excepting  Mr.  Irving,  with  whom  I 
went  to  see  the  show,  and  my  bookseller,  there  was  not  a  face  I  had 
ever  seen  before.  The  whole  was  a  complete  j  ustification  of  all  the  satires 
and  caricatures  we  have  ever  had  upon  city  finery  and  vulgarity.  At 
the  head  of  one  of  the  great  halls,  on  a  platform  raised  a  couple  of  feet 
above  the  rest  of  the  room,  sat  the  Lord  Mayor,  dressed  in  full  gala, 
and  the  Lady  Mayoress,  dressed  in  a  hooped  petticoat,  a  high  head 
dress,  long  waist,  and  a  profusion  of  jewelry.  They  were  surrounded 
by  what,  under  other  circumstances,  might  have  seemed  a  court,  but 
now  looked  more  like  the  candle-snuffers  and  scene- shifters  on  the 

stage They  were  fenced  off  from  the  rabble,  and  sat  there  merely 

for  exhibition.  And,  in  truth,  the  spectators  were  worthy  of  the  show 
they  came  to  witness.  They  were  but  a  mob  of  well-dressed  people, 
collected  in  fine  rooms,  crowding  for  places  to  dance,  ....  and  gazing 
on  the  furniture  in  a  manner  that  showed  they  had  rarely  or  never 
seen  such  before,  and  almost  fighting  for  the  poor  refreshments,  as  if 
they  were  half  starved  ;  and  yet  with  that  genuine  air  of  city  compla 
cency  which  felt  assured  there  was  nothing  in  the  world,  either  so 
elegant  as  the  apartments,  or  so  great  as  the  Lord  Mayor,  or  so  well- 
bred  as  themselves.  . 


I  found  Hazlitt  living  in  Milton's  house,  the  very  one  where  he 
dictated  his  "  Paradise  Lost,"  and  occupying  the  room  where,  tradition 
says,  he  kept  the  organ  on  which  he  loved  to  play.  I  should  rather 
say  Hazlitt  sat  in  it,  for,  excepting  his  table,  three  chairs,  and  an  old 
picture,  this  enormous  room  was  empty  and  unoccupied.  It  was  white 
washed,  and  all  over  the  walls  he  had  written  in  pencil  short  scraps 
of  brilliant  thoughts  and  phrases,  half-lines  of  poetry,  references,  etc., 
in  the  nature  of  a  commonplace-book.  His  conversation  was  much 
of  the  same  kind,  generally  in  short  sentences,  quick  and  pointed, 
dealing  much  in  allusions,  and  relying  a  good  deal  on  them  for  suc 
cess  ;  as,  when  he  said,  with  apparent  satisfaction,  that  Curran  was 


294  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1819. 

the  Homer  of  blackguards,  and  afterwards,  when  the  political  state 
of  the  world  came  up,  said  of  the  Emperor  Alexander,  that  "  he  is  the 
Sir  Charles  Grandison  of  Europe."  On  the  whole,  he  was  more  amus 
ing  than  interesting,  and  his  nervous  manner  shows  that  this  must  be 
his  character.  He  is  now  nearly  forty,  and,  when  quite  young,  lived 
several  years  in  America,  chiefly  in  Virginia,  but  a  little  while  at  our 
Dorchester 

Godwin  is  as  far  removed  from  everything  feverish  and  exciting  as 
if  his  head  had  never  been  filled  with  anything  but  geometry.  He 
is  now  about  sixty-five,  stout,  well-built,  and  unbroken  by  age,  with 
a  cool,  dogged  manner,  exactly  opposite  to  everything  I  had  imagined 
of  the  author  of  "  St.  Leon "  and  "  Caleb  Williams."  He  lives  on 
Snowhill,  just  about  where  Evelina's  vulgar  relations  lived.  His 
family  is  supported  partly  by  the  labors  of  his  own  pen  and  partly 
by  those  of  his  wife's,  but  chiefly  by  the  profits  of  a  shop  for  children's 
books,  which  she  keeps  and  manages  to  considerable  advantage.  She 
is  a  spirited,  active  woman,  who  controls  the  house,  I  suspect,  pretty 
well ;  and  when  I  looked  at  Godwin,  and  saw  with  what  cool  obsti 
nacy  he  adhered  to  everything  he  had  once  assumed,  and  what  a  cold 
selfishness  lay  at  the  bottom  of  his  character,  I  felt  a  satisfaction  in 
the  thought  that  he  had  a  wife  who  must  sometimes  give  a  start  to  his 
blood  and  a  stir  to  his  nervous  system. 

The  true  way,  however,  to  see  these  people  was  to  meet  them  all 
together,  as  I  did  once  at  dinner  at  Godwin's,  and  once  at  a  convoca 
tion,  or  "  Saturday  Night  Club,"  at  Hunt's,  where  they  felt  themselves 
bound  to  show  off  and  produce  an  effect ;  for  then  Lamb's  gentle  hu 
mor,  Hunt's  passion,  and  Curran's  volubility,  Hazlitt's  sharpness  and 
point,  and  Godwin's  great  head  full  of  cold  brains,  all  coming  into  con 
tact  and  conflict,  and  agreeing  in  nothing  but  their  common  hatred  of 
everything  that  has  been  more  successful  than  their  own  works,  made 
one  of  the  most  curious  and  amusing  olla  podrida  I  ever  met. 

The  contrast  between  these  persons  ....  and  the  class  I  was  at  the 
same  time  in  the  habit  of  meeting  at  Sir  Joseph  Banks'  on  Sunday 
evening,  at  Gifford's,  at  Murray's  Literary  Exchange,  and  especially 
at  Lord  Holland's,  was  striking  enough.  As  Burke  said  of  vice,  that 
it  lost  half  its  evil  by  losing  all  its  grossness,  literary  rivalship  here 
seemed  to  lose  all  its  evil  by  the  gentle  and  cultivated  spirit  that  pre 
vailed  over  it,  and  gave  it  its  own  hue  and  coloring.  The  society  at 
Lord  Holland's,  however,  was  quite  different  from  what  it  had  been 
in  January.  Then  he  lived  in  St.  James'  Square,  in  town,  and  had 
almost  none  but  men  of  letters  about  him Now  he  lived  at  his 


M.  27.]  LADY  MORNINGTON.  295 

old  baronial  establishment,  Holland  House,  two  miles  from  London. 
Parliament  was  in  full  session  and  activity,  and  the  chief  members  of 
the  Opposition,  especially  Lord  Grey  and  Earl  Spencer,  were  much 

there There  was  more  of  fashion  and  politics  than  when  I  went 

there  before,  and  I  had  two  very  interesting  dinners  with  them, 

one  when  only  Brougham  and  Sismondi  were  present The  very 

house  has  a  classical  value Lord  Holland  told  me,  that  in  the 

gallery,  which  he  has  converted  into  a  library,  Addison,  according  to 
tradition,  used  to  compose  his  papers,  walking  up  and  down  its  whole 
length,  with  a  bottle  of  wine  at  each  end,  under  whose  influence  he 
wrote,  as  Horace  Walpole  says Lord  Grey  is  a  consummate  gen 
tleman,  and,  besides  being  the  leader  of  the  Opposition  in  the  House 
of  Lords,  is  a  good  scholar.  With  all  this,  he  is  the  affectionate  father 
of  thirteen  children.  There  are  few  men  I  have  known  that  are  more 
loved  than  he  is  ;  but  in  his  general  character,  as  he  appears  in  mixed 
society,  he  is  more  a  politician  than  anything  else 


*  I  had  much  known  in  Madrid  Sir  Henry  Wellesley,  ambassador 
there,  and  afterwards,  as  Lord  Cowley,  ambassador  at  Paris.    He  gave 
me  important  letters  of  introduction,  and  wrote  besides  to  London, 
desiring  me  to  be  presented  to  his  venerable  mother.     One  morning, 
therefore,  the  Dowager  Marchioness  of  Downshire    took  me,  with 
her  two  charming,  cultivated  daughters,  to  make  the  visit.     Lady 
Mornington  was  a  person  of  a  decided,  dignified  manner,  not  much 
infirm  for  her  age,  and  with    the  air    of  a  person  accustomed  to 
deference  from  her  kinsfolk,  however  elevated,  as  well  as  from  other 
people.     She  received  me  kindly,  and  we  talked,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  about  Madrid,  Sir  Henry  and  Lady  Wellesley,  Lord  Marcus 
Hill,  and  other  persons  there  whom  she  knew  ;  as  well  as  of  some, 
like  the  Tatistcheffs,  the  Due  de  Montmorency,  etc.,  of  whom  she 
had  only  heard.      My  English  was  without  accent,  and,  as  I  was 
presented  at  the  request  of  her  son,  she  took  me  to  be  an  English 
man.     The  Downshires,  however,  knowing  me  only  as  an  American, 
began,  after  a  few  moments,  to  talk  about  America  by  way  of  mak 
ing  conversation.     But  we  had  not  got  far  before  old  Lady  Morn 
ington  broke  in  upon  us  :  "  By  the  way,  talking  of  America,  there  are 
more  letters  come  from  Mary  Bagot ;  t  and  she  says  it  is  worse  and 

*  This  anecdote  was  written  out  later  by  Mr.  Ticknor,  and  added  to  the 
Journal. 

t  Lady  Mary,  wife  of  Sir  Charles  Bagot,  then  Minister  at  Washington,  a 
granddaughter  of  Lady  Mornington. 


296  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1819. 

worse  there  ;  that  the  more  parties  she  gives  the  more  she  may  ;  that 
she  never  saw  such  unreasonable,  ill-bred  people  as  those  Americans," 
etc.,  etc.  It  was  not  easy  to  stop  her.  But  the  embarrassment  was 
soon  apparent.  Lady  Downshire,  who  was  a  little  formal,  became 
very  stiff  and  red,  and  her  daughters,  the  Ladies  Hill,  who  were  very 
frolicsome,  found  it  hard  to  stifle  their  laughter  with  their  handker 
chiefs.  At  last  Lady  Mornington  herself  perceived  the  difficulty,  and 
feeling  that  it  was  too  late  to  correct  the  mistake,  she  looked  all  round 
with  a  remarkably  large  and  expressive  pair  of  eyes,  and  simply  said, 
"Ah,  I  see  how  it  is,  we  will  talk  of  something  else."  We  did  not, 
however,  stop  long,  although  the  old  lady  did  not  permit  the  conver 
sation  to  be  broken  up  or  interrupted  ;  but  when  we  were  fairly  in 
the  carriage  again,  to  make  some  other  calls,  we  had  a  good  laugh. 

Mr.  Ticknor  used  to  describe  the  following  incident  as  oc 
curring  at  the  same  period. 

After  dining  one  day  at  Lord  Downshire's  he  accompanied 
the  ladies  to  Almack's.  On  this  evening  Lady  Jersey  was  the 
patroness.  She  was  then  at  the  height  of  beauty  and  brilliant 
talent,  a  leader  in  society,  and  with  decided  political  opinions. 

Before  going  to  the  ball  Lady  Downshire  called  at  Lady 
Mornington's,  and  Mr.  Ticknor  went  in  with  her  and  her 
daughters.  While  they  were  there,  the  Duke  of  Wellington 
came  in ;  and,  being  asked  if  he  was  going  to  Almack's,  said 
"  he  thought  he  should  look  in  by  and  by." 

A  rule  had  lately  been  announced  by  the  patronesses  that  no 
one  would  be  received  later  than  eleven  o'clock.  When  the 
Downshires  thought  it  time  to  go,  the  Duke  said  he  would  join 
them  there  later,  on  which  his  mother  said  to  him,  "  Ah,  Arthur, 
you  had  better  go  in  season,  for  you  know  Lady  Jersey  will  make 
no  allowance  for  you."  He  remained,  however. 

A  short  time  after  the  Downshire  party  had  entered  the  ball 
room,  and  had  been  received  by  Lady  Jersey,  Mr.  Ticknor  was 
still  standing  with  her,  and  heard  one  of  the  attendants  say  to 
her,  "  Lady  Jersey,  -the  Duke  of  Wellington  is  at  the  door  and 
desires  to  be  admitted."  "  What  o'clock  is  it  ? "  she  asked. 
"  Seven  minutes  after  eleven,  your  ladyship."  She  paused  a 
moment,  and  then  said,  with  emphasis  and  distinctness,  "  Give 


JE.  27.]  WILBERFORCE.  297 

my  compliments,  —  give  Lady  Jersey's  compliments  to  the  Duke 
of  Wellington,  and  say  she  is  very  glad  that  the  first  enforce 
ment  of  the  rule  of  exclusion  is  such,  that  hereafter  no  one  can 
complain  of  its  application.  He  cannot  be  admitted." 

JOURNAL. 

The  fashionable  part  of  my  life  in  London  was  so  laboriously  dull 

in  itself  that  I  will  not  describe  it But  there  was  one  place  where 

I  went  several  times,  which  was  so  unlike  the  others  that  it  should 
not  be  mentioned  with  them,  —  I  mean  Mr.  Wilberforce's.  He  lives 

at  Kensington Everything  in  his  house  seemed  to  speak  of  quiet 

and  peace He  is  about  sixty  years  old,  small,  and  altogether  an 

ordinary  man  in  his  personal  appearance.  His  voice  has  a  whine  in 
it,  and  his  conversation  is  broken  and  desultory.  In  general,  he  talks 
most  and  is  most  attentive  to  those  who  talk  most  to  him,  ....  for 
his  benevolence  has  so  long  been  his  governing  principle,  that  he  lends 
his  ear  mechanically  to  all  who  address  him.  Yet  now  and  then  he 
starts  a  subject  of  conversation,  and  pursues  it  with  earnestness,  quotes 
Horace  and  Virgil,  and  almost  rattles  with  a  gay  good-humor  and 
vivacity,  which  strongly  and  uniformly  mark  his  character.  But,  in 
general,  he  leaves  himself  much  in  the  hands  of  those  about  him, 
or,  if  he  attempts  to  direct  the  conversation,  it  is  only  by  making  in 
quiries  to  gratify  his  curiosity 

In  general,  the  persons  I  met  at  Mr.  Wilberforce's  were  pleasant 
people ;  and  Sismondi,  whom  I  carried  there  one  evening,  was  as  much 
delighted  as  I  was,  so  that  I  do  not  think  I  was  deceived  by  my  preju 
dices  or  carried  away  by  the  mere  quiet  of  a  house,  which  seemed 

to  me  a  kind  of  refuge  from  the  wearisome  gayety  of  the  town 

I  always  came  away  with  regret,  because  I  felt  that  I  had  been  in  the 
midst  of  influences  which  ought  to  have  made  me  better. 

I  felt  no  such  regret,  however,  when  at  last,  on  the  26th  April,  I 
left  London.  As  I  bade  Mr.  Williams  farewell,*  whose  kindness  had 
followed  me  all  over  Europe,  and  turned  from  his  door,  I  was  assured 

that  my  face  was  now  finally  set  to  go  home My  journey  to 

Liverpool  was  as  rapid  as  I  could  make  it, ....  and  I  arrived  there  on 

the  morning  of  the  28th I  desired  to  see  nobody  but  Mr.  Roscoe, 

and  with  him  I  had  the  pleasure  of  passing  an  evening,  and  finally 

*  Mr.  Samuel  Williams,  a  banker  in  London,  and  a  member  of  a  well-known 
Boston  family. 

13 


298  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1S19. 

met  him  at  dinner  the  last  day  I  spent  in  Europe.  His  circumstances 
have  changed  entirely  since  I  passed  a  day  with  him  at  Allerton,  on 
my  first  arrival  from  America,  four  years  ago.  He  now  lives  in  a 
small  house,  simply  and  even  sparely,  but  I  was  delighted  to  find  that 
poverty  had  not  chilled  the  warmth  of  his  affections,  or  diminished 
his  interest  in  the  world  and  the  studies  that  formerly  occupied  him. 
He  spoke  of  his  misfortunes  incidentally,  of  the  loss  of  his  library, 
with  a  blush  which  was  only  of  regret ;  but  still  he  was  employed  in 
historical  and  critical  researches,  and  talked  of  a  new  edition  of  his 
"  Lorenzo,"  in  which  he  should  reply  to  what  Sismondi  has  said  of 
him  in  his  "  History  of  the  Republics  of  Italy."  .... 

Mr.  Ticknor's  voyage  home  in  a  "  regular  New  York  packet " 
was  prosperous  and  smooth,  occupying  but  thirty-seven  days.  It 
was  rendered  cheerful  and  pleasant  by  the  company  of  William 
C.  Preston,  of  South  Carolina,  "  an  admirable  fellow,  of  splendid 
talent  and  most  eloquent,  winning  conversation,"  whom  he  had 
already  seen  at  Edinburgh,  where  Preston  was  a  great  favorite 
with  Mrs.  Grant ;  and  that  of  Wickham,  of  Richmond,  Virginia, 
son  of  the  great  lawyer,*  "  a  young  man  of  fine  manners  and  an 
unalterable  sweetness  of  temper."  These  young  men,  with  Profes 
sor  Griscom,  "  a  Quaker  chemist  of  New  York,  an  excellent  old 
gentleman  with  no  small  knowledge  of  the  world,"  bivouacked  on 
the  deck  around  the  sofa  of  "Mrs.  B.,  of  New  York,  a  beautiful 
young  creature  of  talent  and  culture,"  and  all  these  five,  having 
known  each  other  before,  kept  themselves  apart  from  the  other 
passengers,  and  passed  the  days  in  reading,  talking,  and  laugh 
ing. 

As  they  neared  the  land  the  wind  was  unfavorable,  and  the 
captain  relieved  Mr.  Ticknor's  impatience  by  putting  him  on 
board  a  pilot-boat  off  Gay's  Head,  by  which  he  was  taken,  in  six 
or  seven  hours,  to  New  Bedford.  By  this  unpremeditated 
"  change  of  base  "  he  landed  on  his  native  shores  without  money, 
of  which  a  supply  would  have  met  him  in  New  York ;  but  his 
eagerness  to  be  at  home  made  this  of  no  consequence,  and  he 
liked  to  describe  his  mode  of  meeting  the  difficulty  and  the 
kindness  it  called  forth.  Going  to  the  best  hotel  in  the  town, 
*  See  ante,  p.  33. 


^E.  27.]  ARRIVAL  IN  BOSTON.  299 

he  asked  the  landlord  who  was  the  richest  man  in  New  Bedford, 
and  being  told  it  was  Mr.  William  Rotch,  he  went  immediately 
to  him  and  stated  his  case.  Mr.  Rotch,  without  hesitation,  lent 
him  the  money  he  asked ;  and,  thus  provided,  he  hired  a  chaise, 
in  which  he  started  at  about  ten  in  the  evening,  drove  all  through 
the  warm  summer  night,  under  a  full  moon,  and  reached  his 
father's  house  at  seven  in  the  morning,  on  the  6th  of  June. 


300  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1819. 


CHAPTEE    XV. 

Letters  to  Mr.  Ticknor  from  Mr.  Jefferson,  the  Duke  de  Laval,  Count 
Cesare  Balbo,  Madame  de  Broglie,  and  Baron  Auguste  de  Stael. 

D USING  his  absence  from  home,  Mr.  Ticknor  received 
many  letters  and  notes  from  persons  eminent  on  both 
sides  of  the  ocean,  and  a  few  of  these  present  themselves  as  a 
supplement  to  his  own  account  of  his  experiences.  They  serve 
not  only  to  show  the  impression  he  made,  but  to  suggest  traits 
of  character  exhibited  in  his  relations  with  others,  which  are  not 
so  well  brought  forward  in  any  other  way.  The  allusions  to 
conversations,  and  to  points  of  sympathy  or  difference  between 
him  and  his  correspondents,  -add  touches  to  the  picture  that 
would  otherwise  be  lost.  The  first,  in  date,  are  letters  from 
Mr.  Jefferson,  who  seems  to  have  formed  quite  an  affection 
for  the  young  Federalist  from  New  England,  who  visited  him 
early  in  1815.  These  are  only  specimens,  out  of  many  letters 
written  by  the  Ex-President  to  Mr.  Ticknor. 

Those  from  the  Duke  de  Laval,  from  Cesare  Balbo,  Madame 
de  Broglie,  and  Auguste  de  Stael  are  interesting  in  themselves, 
and  full  of  vivacity ;  and  they  bear  still  more  the  marks  of  that 
individuality,  on  both  sides,  which  creates  the  living  element  in 
any  correspondence  that  is  worth  preserving.  These  friendships 
overmastered  time  and  separation,  as  will  be  seen  in  later  por 
tions  of  these  volumes. 

FROM  ME.  JEFFERSON. 

POPLAR  FOREST,  near  LTNCHBURG,  November  25,  1817. 

DEAR  SIR  :  Your  favor  of  August  14  was  delivered  to  me  as  I 

was  setting  out  for  the  distant  possession  from  which  I  now  write, 

and  to  which  I  pay  frequent  and  long  visits.     On  my  arrival  here,  I 

make  it  my  first  duty  to  write  the  letter  you  request  to  Mr.  Erving, 


JE.  27.]        LETTERS  FROM  MR.  JEFFERSON.         301 

and  to  enclose  it  in  this,  imder  cover  to  your  father,  that  you  may  get 
it  in  time.  My  letters  are  always  letters  of  thanks,  because  you  are 
always  furnishing  occasion  for  them.  I  am  very  glad  you  have  been 
so  kind  as  to  make  the  alteration  you  mention  in  the  Herodotus  and 
Livy  I  had  asked  from  the  Messrs.  Desbures.  I  have  not  yet  heard 
from  them,  but  daily  expect  to  do  so,  and  to  learn  the  arrival  of  my 
books.  I  shall  probably  send  them  another  catalogue  early  in  spring ; 
every  supply  from  them  furnishing  additional  materials  for  my  happi 
ness. 

I  had  before  heard  of  the  military  ingredients  which  Bonaparte  had 
infused  into  all  the  schools  of  France,  but  have  never  so  well  under 
stood  them  as  from  your  letter.  The  penance  he  is  now  doing  for  all 
his  atrocities  must  be  soothing  to  every  virtuous  heart.  It  proves 
that  we  have  a  God  in  heaven,  that  he  is  just,  and  not  careless  of 
what  passes  in  this  world  ;  and  we  cannot  but  wish,  to  this  inhuman 
wretch,  a  long,  long  life,  that  time,  as  well  as  intensity,  may  fill  up 
his  sufferings  to  the  measure  of  his  enormities.  But,  indeed,  what 
sufferings  can  atone  for  his  crimes  against  the  liberties  and  happiness 
of  the  human  race  ;  for  the  miseries  he  has  already  inflicted  on  his 
own  generation,  and  on  those  yet  to  come,  on  whom  he  has  riveted 
the  chains  of  despotism ! 

I  am  now  entirely  absorbed  in  endeavors  to  effect  the  establishment 
of  a  general  system  of  education  in  my  native  State,  on  the  triple 
basis  :  1.  of  elementary  schools  which  shall  give  to  the  children  of 
every  citizen,  gratis,  competent  instruction  in  reading,  writing,  com 
mon  arithmetic,  and  general  geography  ;  2.  Collegiate  institutions  for 
ancient  and  modern  languages,  for  higher  instruction  in  arithmetic, 
geography,  and  history,  placing,  for  these  purposes,  a  college  within  a 
day's  ride  of  every  inhabitant  of  the  State,  and  adding  a  provision  for 
the  full  education,  at  the  public  expense,  of  select  subjects  from 
among  the  children  of  the  poor,  who  shall  have  exhibited  at  the 
elementary  schools  the  most  prominent  indications  of  aptness,  of 
judgment,  and  correct  disposition  ;  3.  A  university,  in  which  all  the 
branches  of  science  deemed  useful  at  this  day,  shall  be  taught  in  their 
highest  degree.  This  would  probably  require  ten  or  twelve  profes 
sors,  for  most  of  whom  we  shall  be  obliged  to  apply  to  Europe,  and 
most  likely  to  Edinburgh,  because  of  the  greater  advantage  the  stu 
dents  will  receive  from  communications  made  in  their  native  language. 
This  last  establishment  will  probably  be  within  a  mile  of  Charlottes- 
ville,  and  four  from  Monticello,  if  the  system  should  be  adopted  at 
all  by  our  Legislature,  who  meet  within  a  week  from  this  time.  My 


302  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1819. 

hopes,  however,  are  kept  in  check  by  the  ordinary  character  of  our 
State  legislatures,  the  members  of  which  do  not  generally  possess 
information  enough  to  perceive  the  important  truths,  that  knowledge 
is  power,  that  knowledge  is  safety,  and  that  knowledge  is  happiness. 
In  the  mean  time,  and  in  case  of  failure  of  the  broader  plan,  we  are 
establishing  a  college  of  general  science  at  the  same  situation  near 
Charlottesville,  the  scale  of  which,  of  necessity,  will  be  much  more 
moderate,  as  resting  on  private  donations  only.  These  amount  at 
present  to  about  75,000  dollars ;  the  buildings  are  begun,  and  by 
midsummer  we  hope  to  have  two  or  three  professorships  in  operation. 
Would  to  God  we  could  have  two  or  three  duplicates  of  yourself,  the 
original  being  above  our  means  or  hopes.  If  then  we  fail  in  doing 
all  the  good  we  wish,  we  will  do,  at  least,  all  we  can.  This  is  the 
law  of  duty  in  every  society  of  free  agents,  where  every  one  has  equal 
right  to  judge  for  himself.  God  bless  you,  and  give  to  the  means 
of  benefiting  mankind  which  you  will  bring  home  with  you,  all  the 
success  your  high  qualifications  ought  to  insure. 

TH.  JEFFERSON. 

FROM  MR.  JEFFERSON. 

.  MONTICELLO,  October  25,  1818. 

DEAR  SIR  :  I  received,  two  days  ago,  your  favor  of  August  10, 
from  Madrid,  and  sincerely  regret  that  my  letter  to  Cardinal  Dugnani 
did  not  reach  you  at  Rome.*  It  would  have  introduced  you  to  a  cir 
cle  worth  studying  as  a  variety  in  the  human  character.  I  am  happy, 
however,  to  learn  that  your  peregrinations  through  Europe  have  been 

*  The  letter  to  Cardinal  Dugnani  had  a  curious  history.  It  must  have 
reached  Mr.  Elisha  Ticknor,  for  the  letter  to  him  which  contained  it  was 
found  among  his  papers.  The  enclosed  letter,  however,  never  left  this  conti 
nent,  but  was  found  many  years  afterwards  "in  the  garret  of  an  old  house  in 
Plymouth,  Massachusetts,  among  a  mass  of  ship-papers,  log-books,  etc.,  etc. 
The  owner  of  the  house  formerly  owned  sailing  vessels,  and  two  of  his  brothers 
were  sea-captains,  one  of  whom  sailed  to  the  Mediterranean."  In  1864  Mr. 
Ticknor  received  a  letter  from  Troy,  New  York,  addressed  to  him  by  a  lady  born 
in  Plymouth,  who  offered  to  send  him  Mr.  Jefferson's  letter  to  the  Cardinal, 
which  she  had  found  among  some  autographs  in  her  possession,  and  of  which 
she  had  traced  the  history  as  above.  She  thought  he  ought  to  have  the  letter, 
because  it  concluded  with  a  very  high  compliment  to  him.  Mr.  Ticknor  was 
much  pleased  by  this  little  incident,  accepted  the  letter,  and  sent  the  lady  a 
copy  of  the  handsome  quarto  edition  of  his  Life  of  Prescott,  then  just  pub 
lished.  The  fate  of  the  letter  was  never  further  explained.  Mr.  Elisha  Ticknor 
had  obviously  sent  it  on  its  way,  but  it  did  not  go  far  on  its  journey. 


JE.  27.]  LETTERS  FROM  THE  DUKE  DE  LAVAL.  303 

successful  as  to  the  object  to  which  they  were  directed.  You  will 
come  home  fraught  with  great  means  of  promoting  the  science,  and 
consequently  the  happiness  of  your  country  ;  the  only  obstacle  to 
which  will  be,  that  your  circumstances  will  not  compel  you  to  sacri 
fice  your  own  ease  to  the  good  of  others.  Many  are  the  places  which 
would  court  your  choice  ;  and  none  more  fervently  than  the  college  I 
have  heretofore  mentioned  to  you,  now  expected  to  be  adopted  by  the 
State  and  liberally  endowed  under  the  name  of  "  the  University  of 
Virginia."  ....  I  pass  over  our  professorship  of  Latin,  Greek,  and 
Hebrew,  and  that  of  modern  languages,  French,  Italian,  Spanish, 
German,  and  Anglo-Saxon,  which,  although  the  most  lucrative,  would 
be  the  most  laborious,  and  notice  that  which  you  would  splendidly 
fill,  of  Ideology,  Ethics,  Belles-Lettres,  and  Fine  Arts.  I  have  some 
belief,  too,  that  our  genial  climate  would  be  more  friendly  to  your 
constitution  than  the  rigors  of  that  of  Massachusetts  ;  but  all  this 
may  possibly  yield  to  the  hoc  cesium,  sub  quo  natus  educatusque 
essem.  I  have  indulged  in  this  reverie  the  more  credulously,  be 
cause  you  say  in  your  letter  that  "  if  there  were  a  department  in  the 
central  government  that  was  devoted  to  public  instruction,  I  might 
have  sought  a  place  in  it ;  but  there  is  none,  there  is  none  even  in 
my  State  government."  Such  an  institution  of  the  general  govern 
ment  cannot  be,  until  an  amendment  of  the  Constitution,  and  for 
that,  and  the  necessary  laws  and  measures  of  execution,  long  years 
must  pass  away.  In  the  mean  while  we  consider  the  institution  of 
our  University  as  supplying  its  place,  and  perhaps  superseding  its 
necessity. 

With  stronger  wishes  than  expectations,  therefore,  I  will  wait  to 
hear  from  you,  as  our  buildings  will  not  be  ready  under  a  year  from 
this  time  ;  and  to  the  affectionate  recollections  of  our  family,  add 
assurances  of  my  constant  and  sincere  attachment. 

TH.  JEFFERSON. 

FROM  THE  DUKE  DE  LAVAL. 

MADRID,  18  Novembre,  1818. 

*  Je  re"ponds  a  votre  tres  aimable  lettre,  de  la  fin  d'Octobre  de  Lis- 
bonne ;  et,  suivant  vos  instructions,  mon  cher  Ticknor,  je  vais  en- 
voyer  ce  paquet  a  votre  ministre,  qui  renfermera  mes  petites  lettres 
de  recommendation.     Nous  nous  somines  fort  divertis  ici,  aux  de- 

*  Translation :  I  answer  your  very  kind  letter  of  the  last  of  October  from 
Lisbon  ;  and  obeying  your  instructions,  my  dear  Ticknor,  I  send  this  parcel  to 
your  minister,  who  will  enclose  my  little  letters  of  introduction.    We  were  very 


304  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1819. 

pens  de  la  police  du  Royaume,  de  votre  expedient,  en  vous  plagant 
sous  la  protection  des  contrebandiers,  pour  arriver  sain  et  sauf  k  Lis- 
bonne.  Vos  amis  regrettent,  et  moi,  plus  que  tous  les  autres,  que  ces 
brigandages  des  grands  chemins,  vous  aient  fait  prendre  la  sage 
resolution  de  vous  embarquer.  C'etait  un  projet  bien  amical,  de 
venir  me  donner  k  la  Calle  de  la  Reyna,  un  dernier  shake-hand,  avant 
votre  grand  depart,  pro  aris  et  focis.  II  m'est  agreable  de  penser,  je 
vous  assure,  que  j'ai  en  vous  un  jeune  ami,  dont  le  souvenir  ne  me 
manquera  jamais,  dans  les  deux  hemispheres. 

Je  vous  assure  aussi,  que,  si  jamais  j'ai  besoin  d'un  change  d'asyle, 
j'irai  le  chercher  &  Boston,  et  non  dans  la  province  et  les  deserts  de 
Texas.  J'ai  la  conviction,  que  j'y  trouverais  des  hotes  con  corazon 
limpio  y  blando. 

Quand  vous  verrez,  a  Paris,  mes  parents  et  amis,  vous  leur  parlerez 
de  moi,  et  de  notre  exaltation  commune,  pour  la  poesie  dramatique 
Espagnole.  Mathieu,*  la  Duchesse  de  Duras,  Mad.  Recamier,  vous 

much  amused,  here,  over  the  police  of  the  kingdom,  and  your  expedient  of  pla 
cing  yourself  under  the  protection  of  the  contrabandists,  in  order  to  reach  Lisbon 
in  safety.  Your  friends  regret,  and  I  most  of  all,  that  this  brigandage  on  the 
highways  has  induced  you  to  come  to  the  prudent  decision  to  take  to  the  sea. 
It  was  a  friendly  plan,  that  of  coming  to  give  me  a  last  shake-hand  iu  the  Calle 
de  la  Reyna,  before  your  final  departure  pro  aris  et  focis.  I  assure  you  it  is 
pleasant  to  me  to  think  that  I  have  in  you  a  young  friend,  whose  remembrance 
will  never  fail  me,  in  both  hemispheres. 

I  assure  you,  also,  that  if  ever  I  am  forced  to  a  change  of  abode  I  will  go  to 
seek  it  in  Boston,  and  not  in  the  province  and  the  deserts  of  Texas.  I  have  a 
conviction  that  I  should  find  a  welcome  there  from  hosts  with  hearts  trans 
parent  and  kind. 

When  you  see  my  relatives  and  friends  in  Paris,  you  will  speak  of  me  to 
them,  and  of  our  common  enthusiasm  for  Spanish  dramatic  poetry.  Mathieu, 
the  Duchesse  de  Duras,  Mad.  Recamier,  will  understand  you  very  well.  Show 
the  first,  those  little  pages  which  we  wrote  on  that  subject,  at  parting. 

You  arrive  at  the  most  critical  moment  in  our  parliamentary  discussions; 
being  outside  of  the  circle  of  these  interests,  you  will  judge  soundly,  with  a 
mind  unprejudiced  by  party  influences.  Send  me  your  conclusions,  your 
anticipations,  your  associations  in  society. 

Adieu,  my  young  friend  ;  I  send  you  all  the  sentiments  and  the  benedictions 
of  friendship. 

M.  L. 

My  cousin  will  take  care  to  introduce  you  to  M.  de  Chateaubriand,  to  whom 
you  will  convey  my  remembrance.  He  and  Benjamin  Constant,  placed  at  the 
two  extremities  of  the  line,  fight  with  equal  zeal,  and  with  great  talents. 

*  Mathieu  de  Montmorency,  a  member  of  the  intimate  circle  of  Mad.  de 
Stael  and  Mad.  Recamier,  a  cousin  and  friend  of  the  Duke  de  Laval,  mentioned 
again  in  the  postscript  to  the  above  letter. 


JE.  27.]  LETTERS  FROM  THE  DUKE  DE  LAVAL.  305 

entendront  fort  bien.     Montrez  au  premier,  ces  petites  pages  que  nous 
avons  ecrites  siir  ce  sujet,  en  nous  separant.* 

Vous  arrivez  a  1'epoque  la  plus  critique  de  nos  discussions  parle- 
mentaires :  en  dehors  du  cercle  de  ces  interets,  vous  jugerez  saine- 
ment,  avec  un  esprit  degage  de  rinfluence  des  partis.  Mandez  moi 
vos  jugements,  vos  presages,  et  vos  relations  de  society. 

Adieu,  mon  jeune  ami.  Je  vous  envoie  tous  les  sentiments,  et  les 
benedictions  de  I'amitie. 

M.  L, 

Mon  cousin  se  chargera  de  vous  introduire  pres  de  M.  de  Chateau 
briand,  a  qui  vous  ofFrirez  tous  mes  souvenirs.  Lui  et  Benjamin 
Constant,  places  aux  deux  extremites  de  la  ligne,  combattent  avec 
nne  egale  ardeur,  et  de  grands  talents. 

FROM  THE  DUKE  DE  LAVAL. 

MADRID,  18  Janvier,  1819. 

t  Vous  ne  doutez  pas  plus,  de  I'interet  que  m'a  inspire  votre  lettre, 
du  18  Decembre,  de  Paris,  que  de  la  Constance  de  mon  amide,  mon 
cher  Ticknor.  J'ai  ete  charme  d'apprendre  la  rapidite  de  votre  voy 
age,  et  tout  le  succes  de  votre  expedition. 

Comme  vous  etes  encore  dans  le  cas  qu'on  vous  applique  cette 
hemistiche  a  Enee  :  Vastum  maris  cequor  arandum,  votre  derniere 
navigation,  vous  donnera  courage  pour  retourner  home. 

Tout  ce  que  vous  m'avez  mande,  de  vos  premiers  aperc,us  a  Paris, 
sont  deja  de  vieilles  reflexions  pour  1'histoire  ;  et  le  theatre  est  deja 
bien  change"  ;  c'est  un  autre  probleme  sous  vos  yeux.  Shakespeare 
dit,  que  Ton  joue  toujours  la  nieme  piece  ;  et  qu'il  n'y  a  que  les 
acteurs  qui  varient.  Vous,  qui  n'etes  pas  dans  le  cercle  de  ces  interets, 

*  These  were  manuscript  notes,  written  by  each  and  exchanged,  of  which 
the  Duke  de  Laval's  part  was  preserved  among  Mr.  Ticknor's  papers. 

t  Tran.tla.tion :  You  no  more  doubt  the  interest  your  letter  of  the  18th  De 
cember  from  Paris  excited  in  me,  than  the  constancy  of  my  friendship,  my  dear 
Ticknor.  I  was  delighted  to  hear  of  the  rapidity  of  your  journey,  and  the  entire 
success  of  your  expedition.  As  you  are  still  in  a  position  to  have  applied  to  you 
this  stanza  applied  to  ^Eneas,  Vastum  maris  cequor  arandum,  your  late  voyage 
will  give  you  courage  for  returning  home. 

All  that  you  have  given  me  of  your  first  views  of  Paris  are  already  antiquated 
reflections  fit  for  history,  and  the  theatre  is  already  changed  ;  another  problem 
is  before  your  eyes.  Shakespeare  says  it  is  always  the  same  piece  played,  only 
the  actors  change.  You  who  do  not  belong  in  the  circle  of  these  interests  can 
contemplate  all  these  things  as  a  philosopher,  and  regard  them  as  tragedy  or  as 


306  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1819-. 

vous  pouvez  contempler  toutes  ces  choses  en  Philosophe,  et  les  traiter 
de  tragedie,  ou  de  Saynete  a  votre  fantaisie,  suivant  le  prisme  oil  vous 
les  considerez.  Votre  amitie,  qui  a,  sans  doute,  aussi  bonne  memoire 
que  votre  esprit,  me  donnera  de  nouveaux  jugements.  On  ne  juge 
jamais  mieux,  que  quand  on  peut  se  placer  sur  la  hauteur  de  1'im- 
partialite.  Vous  voyez,  vous  frequentez,  des  personnages  tres  influents 
au  centre,  et  dans  les  deux  extremites. 

Ici,  toutes  nos  habitudes  de  gaite,  nos  distractions,  sont  converties 
dans  la  plus  morne  tristesse.  Nous  sommes  converts  de  crepes  noires  ; 
et  nous  n'avons  plus  pour  nous  distraire,  qu'un  tour  de  galop,  habitu- 
ellement  dans  la  jolie  prairie  sur  les  bords  du  ManQaneres,  avec  Lady 
Georgina,*  qui  est  parfaitement  aimable.  C'est  la,  ou  nous  avons 
chevauche  si  souvent  ensemble,  estando  in  diversos  praticos,  ou  vous 
avez  toujours  revele  votre  excellent  naturel,  avec  votre  vaste  eru 
dition. 

II  semble  que  notre  Cesar  t  a  renonce  a  cet  exercice.  Depuis  qu'il 
est  encorgado  de  negdcios,  il  est  devenu  trop  grave  pour  nous.  Je 
sympathisais  davantage  avec  la  douceur  de  votre  caractere,  et  de  votre 
singuliere  modestie. 

MM.  de  1'ambassade,  vous  offrent  milles  compliments,  et  moi,  je 
vous  prie  d'offrir  un  ancien  hommage  hereditaire,  a  la  jolie  Duchesse 

farce  according  to  your  fancy,  according  to  the  prism  through  which  you  look 
on  them.  Your  friendship,  which  has,  no  doubt,  as  good  a  memory  as  your 
mind,  will  send  me  new  conclusions.  We  never  judge  better  than  when  we  can 
place  ourselves  on  the  height  of  impartiality.  You  meet,  you  associate  with 
very  influential  personages  of  the  centre,  and  of  both  extremes. 

Here  all  our  habits  of  gayety,  our  amusements,  are  transformed  into  gloomy 
sadness.  We  are  wrapped  in  black  crepe,  and  nothing  is  left  to  cheer  us  but  a 
gallop,  usually  in  the  pretty  meadow  on  the  banks  of  the  Man?aneres,  with 
Lady  Georgina,  who  is  quite  charming.  It  was  there  that  we  often  rode  to 
gether,  busy  with  many  matters  ;  there,  that  you  always  exhibited  your  excel 
lent  nature  and  your  vast  erudition. 

Our  Csesar  seems  to  have  abandoned  this  exercise.  Since  he  has  become 
charge  d'affaires  he  has  grown  too  grave  for  us.  I  had  more  sympathy  with  the 
gentleness  of  your  character,  and  your  singular  modesty. 

The  gentlemen  of  the  Embassy  send  you  many  compliments,  and  I  beg  you 
to  offer  an  ancient  hereditary  homage  to  the  pretty  Duchesse  de  Broglie,  who 
now,  I  think,  disdains  my  remembrance. 

Preserve  for  me  the  fidelity  of  your  friendship,  and  of  your  device,  Ccdum  non 
animum,  and  accept  the  assurance  of  my  tender  sentiments. 

M.  L. 

*  Lady  Georgina  Wellesley,  wife  of  Sir  Henry,  and  daughter  of  the  Marquess 
of  Salisbury. 

t  Cesare  Balbo. 


M.  27.]  LETTERS  FROM  COUNT  CESARE  BALBO.  307 

de  Broglie,  que  je   crois  aujourd'hui  bien  dedaignante  pour  mon 
souvenir. 

Conservez  moi  la  fidelite"  de  votre  amitie,  et  de  votre  devise,  Ccelum 
non  animum,  et  agreez  1'assurance,  de  mes  tendres  sentiments. 

M.  L.* 

Count  Cesare  Balbo,  the  writer  of  the  following  letters,  whose 
character  and  talents  had  attached  and  interested  Mr.  Ticknor,  f 
had  been  already,  in  early  youth,  during  Napoleon's  government 
of  Italy,  put  forward  in  public  affairs,  and  had  shown  great  pre 
cocity  and  ability.  He  afterwards  passed  through  severe  trials, 
both  public  and  private,  suffering  much  from  the  weakness  and 
injustice  of  the  princes  of  his  native  country.  Nevertheless, 
when  in  1847  the  goal  of  his  desires  for  the  independence  and 
unity  of  Italy  seemed  for  a  moment  almost  within  reach,  he 
threw  himself  into  the  forefront  of  the  conflict,  served  Charles 
Albert  faithfully  as  his  Prime  Minister,  sent  five  sons  to  the 
army,  — where  one  of  them  was  killed  in  battle,  —  and  proved, 
by  his  whole  course  of  action,  the  sincerity  and  disinterested 
ness  of  the  political  views  he  had  always  urged  upon  his  coun 
trymen. 

During  a  period  of  forced  inaction,  in  middle  life,  he  devoted 
himself  to  literature,  and  is  widely  known  by  his  "  Vita  di 
Dante,"  as  well  as  by  his  "  Speranze  d'ltalia,"  and  other  politi 
cal  writings.  He  was  born  in  1789  and  died  in  1853,  leaving  a 
name  honored  throughout  Italy,  and  distinguished  in  the  culti 
vated  circles  of  all  Europe.  Though  his  correspondence  with 
Mr.  Ticknor  ceased  before  very  long,  yet  their  affection  for  each 
other  did  not  diminish,  and  in  1836  they  met  like  brothers,  and 
were  much  together  in  Turin,  and  in  Paris  two  years  later. 

FROM  COUNT  CESARE  BALBO. 

MADRID,  12  October,  1818. 
J  To-day,  before  the  time,  on  Monday  morning,  I  receive  your 

*  The  Duke  de  Laval  died  at  the  age  of  seventy,  three  months  before  Mr. 
Ticknor  reached  Paris  in  1837,  so  that  they  never  met  again, 
t  See  ante,  pp.  210,  212,  213. 
}  Translated  from  the  Italian. 


308  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1819. 

letter  from  Gibraltar,  and  I  thank  Heaven,  this  time,  that  I  am  not 
capable  of  controlling  my  occupations  and  my  hours  as  you  do,  oth 
erwise  I  should  be  forced  to  wait  seven  days  for  a  pleasure  which  I 
do  not  wish  to  defer  a  moment,  —  that  of  answering  you.  I  never 
made  fine  phrases  to  you,  of  friendship  and  eternal  devotion  ;  indeed, 
it  pleased  me  that  you  made  none  to  me  ;  it  pleased  me  that  you  were 
in  haste  to  go  from  here,  to  return  to  your  country,  and  to  your  true 
and  early  friends.  Nevertheless,  the  inhuman  pride  which  you  at 
tribute  to  me  does  not  prevent  me  from  saying,  first,  —  or  even  I 
alone,  —  that  excepting,  on  my  part  also,  the  friends  of  early  youth 
with  whom  I  count  on  passing  my  latest  age,  I  have  never  met  nor 
known  any  one  with  whom  I  so  desire  a  reciprocal  correspondence 
of  friendship  as  with  you.  Poor  correspondence  it  will  be,  con 
tinued  hereafter  only  by  letters  and  by  some  casual  meeting  ;  but  if 
you  continue  to  write  to  me  often,  as  you  have  written,  and  to  remem 
ber  me  on  many  Sundays  in  the  year,  I  shall  place  your  friendly  re 
membrance  among  the  best  and  the  rare  pleasures  of  my  life.  Cer 
tain  it  is,  that  I  have  had  few  like  that  of  receiving  this  letter,  since 
the  day  of  your  departure. 

Twenty-four  hours  after  that,  precisely,  we  received  the  long- 
expected  and  desired  news  of  the  change  of  my  father's  destination. 
He  is  recalled,  made  Minister  of  State,  and  Capo  del  Magistrate  delta 
Itiforma,  a  title  which  you  will  not  understand,  and  which  means 
Chief  of  the  Department  of  Instruction.  It  is  an  honorable,  tranquil 
post,  important  to  the  well-being  of  our  country  ;  my  father  is  much 
satisfied. 

I  am  left,  as  I  foresaw,  until  some  one  can  be  found  who  knows  so 
little  of  this  country  that  he  desires  to  come  here  ;  and  it  might  be 
long,  I  think  ;  but  I  shall  do  what  I  can,  assuredly,  that  this  exile 
may  not  last  much  longer.  But  my  father,  who  was  called  to  come 
in  all  haste,  has  not  been  able  to  leave  yet ;  he  will  not  leave  before 
the  last  days  of  this  month  ;  he  will  not  arrive  before  the  last  of  the 
next ;  he  will  not  speak  of  me  before  the  beginning  of  the  following  ; 
they  will  give  no  thought  to  my  affairs  before  the  end  ;  and,  in  short, 
before  the  month  of  February  or  March  I  do  not  hope  for  that  liberty 
which  I  would  so  gladly  employ  in  making  the  trip  to  England  with 
you.  Judge  for  yourself,  then,  of  the  pleasure  I  take  in  the  hope  you 
give  me  of  your  passing  again  through  Madrid.  I  no  longer  hope,  I 
say,  that  I  can  accompany  you,  but  I  cling  to  the  hope  —  indeed  I  feel 
it  more  sure  than  ever  —  that  I  may  join  you  in  England.  Would  to 
God  that  of  these  meetings,  although  short,  I  might  hope  for  many ; 


M.  27.]  CESARE  BALBO.  309 

that  such  a  sea  might  not  divide  us,  or  that  you  should  consent  to  the 
wishes  of  your  father  ;  but  I  must  perforce  admit  that  you  are  right 
in  not  desiring  this  our  trade,  more  infernal  —  whatever  you  may  say 
—  than  the  five  hundred  mouths  of  fire  at  Gibraltar.  You  have  always 
seen  in  me  this  same  love  of  the  diplomacy  ;  but  since  your  departure 

I  have  had  new  reasons  for  abhorring  it You  may  judge,  then, 

if  I  was  pleased  by  the  news  you  gave  me  of  the  arrival  of  the  Count 
ess  di  Teba,  I  do  not  say,  have  not  said,  and  will  not  say,  that  she 
is  a  mere,  pretty  Andalusian  woman;  willingly,  and  exactly  as  you 
yourself  regarded  her,  the  most  interesting  Spanish  Lady.  Therefore 
we  shall  not  be  able  to  dispute  this  time 

Addio,  caro  ;  I  conclude,  without  beginning  to  discourse  of  ambi 
tion,  and  of  Machiavelli,  because  if  I  should  throw  myself  into  that,  I 
should  do  nothing  else  all  day.  Love  me  as  much  as  is  possible  far 
away,  writing  to  me  as  often  as  you  can,  and  believe  me  your  friend, 

CES.  BALBO. 

I  open  this  again  to  quote  to  you  a  scrap  of  the  author  whom  you 
love  above  every  other,  which,  having  fallen  upon  it  by  chance,  seems 
to  me  capable  of  serving  me,  by  way  of  answer,  applying  it  to  myself. 
You  see  that  he  begins,  "  Fling  away  ambition,"  and  ends  with 
"  Serve  the  King."  This  is  just  what  you  will  not  understand,  and 
what  I  believe  practicable,  and  mean  to  do.  The  two  and  a  half 
penultimate  lines,  chiefly,  contain  all  my  ambition,  all  my  morality, 
all  my  politics.  I  did  not  remember  them,  but  henceforward  they 
will  be  among  the  very  few  I  carry  in  my  mind  :  — 

"I  charge  thee,  fling  away  ambition  ; 
By  that  sin  fell  the  angels  ;  how  can  man  then, 
The  image  of  his  Maker,  hope  to  win  by  't  ? 
Love  thyself  last :  cherish  even  hearts  that  hate  thee ; 
Corruption  wins  not  more  than  honesty. 
Still  in  thy  right  hand  carry  gentle  peace, 
To  silence  envious  tongues.     Be  just,  and  fear  not : 
Let  all  the  ends  thou  aim'st  at  be  thy  country's, 
Thy  God's,  and  truth's  ;  then  if  thou  fall'st, 
Thou  fall'st  a  blessed  martyr.    Serve  the  King." 

FROM  COUNT  CESABE  BALBO. 

MADRID,  15  April,  1819. 

*  Yesterday  evening  I  was  told,  by  the  Due  de  Laval,  of  your 
affliction,  my  friend.  For  a  long  time  I  have  wished  to  write  to  you, 

*  Translated  from  the  Italian. 


310  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1819. 

for  a  long  time  I  have  delayed,  for  reasons  I  will  tell  you  later  ;  but 
there  is  no  reason,  and  no  business,  which  shall  delay  me  longer,  when 
I  know  you  are  unhappy,  and  that  in  your  grief  you  doubt  those 
whom  you  have  inspired  with  a  real  friendship  for  you.  I  know 
by  experience  what  it  is  to  lose  the  person  most  dear  to  us,  and  on 
whom  rested  our  hope  of  love,  of  comfort,  and  companionship  for  the 
whole  of  life ;  and  I  know,  moreover,  that  under  such  misfortunes 
we  easily  suspect  all  our  friends  of  forgetting  us.  You  have,  as 
suredly,  at  home,  many  persons  who  will  be  comforters  to  you,  and 
who  will  prove  their  friendship  for  you.  But  I  should  like  to  prove 
to  you  that,  excepting  the  friends  of  your  childhood,  you  have  none 
on  whom  you  ought  to  count  more  than  on  me.  I  except  those, 
because  you,  in  talking  with  me,  have  several  times  excepted  them, 
and,  as  it  were,  placed  them  out  of  the  range  of  comparison  with  any 
friendship  formed  by  you  in  Europe ;  but  it  seemed  to  me,  even 
then,  that,  among  these,  you  made  some  account  of  mine.  I,  on  my 
part,  can  assure  you,  with  sincerity,  that  not  only  for  many  years,  but 
for  all  the  years  which  I  distinctly  remember,  I  have  never  known 
any  man  whom  I  love  so  much,  or  by  whom  I  so  much  desire  to  be 
loved,  as  by  you.  Such  declarations  would  be  needless,  were  it  not 
that  I  know  myself  to  be  guilty  of  a  long  silence  with  you  ;  and  that 
I  should  be  truly  unhappy  if,  in  your  present  circumstances,  you 
should  interpret  this  silence  as  a  proof  of  forgetfulness.  Now  I  will 
tell  you,  not  as  apology,  how  I  have  been  prevented  so  long  from 
writing  to  you.  .... 

And  now  we  are  inevitably  separated  ;  and  perhaps  at  this  moment 
you  are  at  sea,  approaching  another  continent.  And  now,  my  friend, 
is  the  time  to  make  firmer  and  closer  the  relations  between  us.  And, 
if  you  are  not  unwilling,  it  seems  to  me  these  may  be  truly  called 
friendship  ;  for  even  without  being  able  to  gather  from  them  the  fruit 
that  is  commonly  gathered,  when  one  lives  near  the  other,  it  yet  ap 
pears  to  me  that,  whether  near  or  far,  if  there  is  true  esteem,  —  con 
formity,  in  a  great  degree,  of  opinion, — affection, — desire  of  being  useful 
to  one  another,  and  to  exchange  mutual  information  of  all  that  hap 
pens  to  each, — there  is  true  friendship.  All  this  exists  on  my  side,  and 
I  assure  you  of  it,  fully  and  sincerely.  In  you  I  believe  it  did  exist, 
and  I  hope  that  this  my  silence  for  some  months  past  has  not  de 
prived  me  of  the  friendship  you  had  for  me,  especially  now  when  you 
know  how  it  has  come  to  pass  ,that  I  have  delayed  writing  to  you  as 
I  wished  to  do,  least  of  all  when  I  add  that  I  have  just  passed,  in 
point  of  health,  inward  tranquillity,  and  satisfaction  with  myself,  the 
worst  six  months  which  have  fallen  to  my  lot  for  many  years 


^E.  27.]  MADAME  DE  BROGLIE.  311 

I  must  tell  you  that,  forced  by  the  diplomatic  caution,  and  the  vice 
of  unpunctuality  of  the  Due  de  Laval,  to  give  up  the  rides  we  used  to 
take  with  him,  I  still  find,  in  all  other  things,  that  it  is  difficult  to 
meet  a  better  man,  in  any  class,  or  in  any  business,  least  of  all  in  the 
business  which  is  his,  and  mine.  We  have,  therefore,  remained  quite 
intimate  in  our  relations,  in  which  I  find  no  other  defect  in  him  than 
that  of  his  want  of  confidence,  for  I  am  not  so  miserly  of  mine 
towards  him,  but  give  him,  without  claim  of  restitution,  whatever  I 
can  give  him. 

Addio,  dear  Ticknor ;  be  assured  that  the  time  we  have  passed 
together  will  always  dwell  in  my  memory,  and  that  I  cannot  fail,  in 
consequence,  to  take  a  most  lively  interest  in  whatever  occurs  to  you 
after  your  present  affliction.  Write  to  me,  I  beg,  very  soon ;  and  if 
you  do  not  dislike  it,  let  us  agree  upon  a  correspondence,  not  regular 
but  continuous,  to  take  the  place  between  us  of  that  affectionate  com 
panionship  which  I  should  so  much  like  to  have  with  you.  But  can 
not  you,  some  day,  come  back  to  see  Europe  and  Italy  once  more  1 
Addio. 

In  a  letter  from  the  Duchesse  de  Broglie,  answering  one  from 
Mr.  Ticknor  -written  when  he  was  in  England  in  February, 
1819,  she  says  :  — 

*  Je  vous  assure  que  je  regrette  beaucoup  vos  petites  visites,  a  cinq 
heures.     Je  suis  fachee  d'avoir  congu  tant  d'affection  pour  un  sauvage 
de  1'Orinoque,  qui  ne  nous  rejoindra  peut-etre  jamais.     Qui  sait  si  les 
revolutions  ne  nous  ameneront  pas  dans  votre  tranquille  et  beau  pays. 
Je  ne  vous  parlerai  pas  de  notre  politique,  que  vous  dedaignez,  je  vous 
dirai  pourtant,  que  nous  avons  de  la  peine  a  faire  avancer  la  liberte, 
quoiqu'avec  un  Ministere  a  bonnes  intentions.     II  rencontre  des  difn- 
cultes  portant  en  haut  et  en  bas,  et  il  n'a  pas  beaucoup  de  force  pour 
les  vaincre.     Vous  avez  tort  de  mepriser  les  efforts  d'une  nation  pour 
etre  libre.     Toutes  les  creatures  de  Dieu  sont  faites  pour  une  noble 

*  Translation :  I  assure  you  that  I  very  much  miss  your  little  visits  at  five 
o'clock.     I  am  vexed  at  having  formed  such  an  affection  for  a  savage  from  the 
Orinoco,  who  will  perhaps  never  return  to  us.    Who  knows  whether  revolu 
tions  may  not  take  us  into  your  peaceful  and  beautiful  country.     I  will  not  talk 
to  you  of  our  politics,  on  which  you  look  down,  but  I  will  say  that  we  have 
much  trouble  in  promoting  liberty,  even  with  a  well-disposed  ministry.      It 
encounters  difficulties,  above  and  below,  and  has  not  much  strength  for  sur 
mounting  them.     You  are  wrong  to  despise  the  efforts  a  nation  makes  to  be 
free.     All  God's  creatures  are  formed  for  a  noble  destiny,  and  you  have  no  right 


312  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1819. 

destinee,  et  vous  n'avez  pas  le  droit  de  nous  regarder  comme  des 
etres  inferieurs.  En  voila  assez  la-dessus.  Vos  amis  les  Ultras  sont 
toujours  en  colere,  et  nous  detestent  beaucoup.  II  y  a  eu  quantite 
de  duels.  Ce  qui  est  horrible,  les  querelles  politiques  deviennent  des 
querelles  privees.  Cela  n'egaye  pas  Paris.  Le  reste  est  toujours  de 
meme,  les  salons  comme  vous  les  avez  vu,  beaucoup  de  vanite,  peu 
d'affection. 

Victor,  Auguste,  Mile.  Randall,*  tout  cela  pense  a  vous.  Vous 
nous  avez  tous  gagne  le  co3ur.  Je  ne  sais  pas  si  vous  avez  assez 
de  vanite  pour  etre  content  du  succh  general  que  vous  avez  eu  ici. 
Au  reste,  vous  avez  plus  d'orgueil  que  de  vanite,  comme  nous  avons 
dit. 

N'oubliez  pas  mes  livres  americains.  Parlez  moi  un  peu  de  1'etat 
religieux  de  1'Ecosse,  et  de  1'Angleterre.  Vous  savez  que  ce  sujet 
m'interesse.  Mais,  je  vous  promets  de  ne  pas  y  meler  du  mystere. 
Dites  moi  anssi,  si  Ton  vous  parle  de  1'ouvrage  de  ma  mere. 

The  brother  of  Madame  de  Broglie,  Auguste  de  Stael,  a  young 
man  of  distinguished  ability,  and  of  a  singularly  pure  and  ele 
vated  character,  was  one  of  those  who,  like  Cesare  Balbo,  formed 
a  warm  and  lasting  friendship  for  Mr.  Ticknor.  An  early  death 
cut  short  the  high  career  of  the  Baron  de  Stael,  and  caused  a 
loss  both  to  friendship  and  to  letters,  which  Mr.  Ticknor  always 
continued  to  regret. 

In  concluding  a  short  note,  dated  March  17,  1819,  M.  de 
Stael  says  :  — 

to  regard  us  as  inferior  beings.  Enough  on  that  subject.  Your  friends  the 
Ultras  are  still  angry,  and  detest  us  greatly.  There  has  been  a  quantity  of  duels. 
The  dreadful  thing  is  that  political  quarrels  become  private  quarrels.  It  does 
not  make  Paris  gay.  All  else  continues  the  same,  the  salons  as  you  saw  them, 
much  vanity,  little  feeling. 

Victor,  Auguste,  Miss  Randall,  all  of  them  think  of  you.  You  won  all  our 
hearts.  I  do  not  know  whether  you  have  vanity  enough  to  be  pleased  with  the 
general  success  that  you  had  here.  Indeed,  you  have  more  pride  than  vanity, 
as  we  told  you. 

Do  not  forget  my  American  books.  Tell  me  something  about  the  religious 
condition  of  Scotland,  and  England.  You  know  that  is  a  subject  which  interests 
me,  but  I  promise  not  to  mingle  mystery  with  it.  Tell  me,  too,  whether  peo 
ple  talk  to  you  of  my  mother's  work. 

*  The  Duke  de  Broglie,  the  Baron  de  Stael,  and  Miss  Randall,  who  was  a 
faithful  friend  of  Madame  de  Stael,  and  her  companion  during  the  last  years  of 
her  life. 


M.  27.]  BARON  AUGUSTE  DE  STAEL.  313 

Laissez  moi  esperer,  que  j'aurai  encore  quelques  lignes  de  vous, 
avant  de  passer  1'Atlantique ;  et  que  vous  n'oublierez  pas  des  amis, 
qui  vous  sont  Men  tendrement  attaches. 

In  1825  the  following  interesting  letter  came  from  him,  writ 
ten  in  English,  so  nearly  perfect  that  it  is  given  here  exactly 
from  the  autograph. 

COPPET,  August  10,  1825. 

MY  DEAR  TICKNOR, —  It  is  an  object  of  most  sincere  regret  to  me, 
that  it  was  not  in  my  power  to  be  of  any  use  to  your  friends  in  Paris, 
and  to  express  to  them  the  gratitude  and  friendship  which  I  feel  for 
you.  Your  kind  letter  reached  me  here  a  few  days  ago,  and  I  had 
left  Paris  about  the  middle  of  June.  Nothing  can  be  more  striking 
than  your  observations  on  Lafayette's  journey,  and  your  picture  of 
the  five  living  Presidents.  I  read  it  with  tears  in  my  eyes,  for  after 
religion,  there  is  nothing  that  penetrates  so  deep  into  the  heart  of 
man  as  the  love  of  freedom.  Yours  is,  indeed,  a  noble  and  blessed 
country,  and  the  whole  of  America  —  when  she  gets  rid  of  the  Bra 
zilian  Emperor,  which  is  only  an  unnecessary  piece  of  ridicule  —  will 
present  an  unexampled  scene  of  grandeur,  wealth,  and  reason.  But 
for  God's  sake  keep  your  eyes  open  upon  your  slave  States.  I  am 
sadly  struck  with  the  madness  of  the  people  of  Georgia ;  and  pru 
dence  unites  with  common  sense,  justice,  and  religion  to  recommend 
that  some  early  steps  should  be  made  towards  the  abolition  of  slavery. 
I  live  in  the  daily  expectation  to  hear  that  the  fate  of  St.  Domingo 
has  extended  to  the  whole  of  the  West  Indies.  And  what  will  be 
come  of  your  Southern  States,  and  their  slaves,  when  there  is  an 
African  empire  established  in  the  West,  which  will  be  but  a  just  com 
pensation  for  all  the  cruelties  which  the  negroes  have  suffered  from 
the  Europeans,  for  years  and  ages.  Let  your  statesmen  act  and 
speak  ;  your  philosophers  advise  ;  your  ministers  preach  upon  this 
subject.  Delenda  est  Carthago. 

What  should  I  tell  you  of  our  own  politics  ?  They  are  so  shabby 
as  to  make  one  ashamed  to  speak  of  them  ;  yet  disgusting  as  the  con 
duct  of  our  rulers  is,  in  every  respect,  I  think  that  the  country  is 
advancing,  but  there  is  a  complete  chasm  between  the  government 
and  the  people.  There  are  not  two  ideas  or  two  sentiments  in  com 
mon.  On  one  side  bigotry,  hypocrisy,  and  corruption,  on  the  other 
indiiference  as  to  what  passes  in  the  Tuileries,  but  constant  activity 
to  improve,  not  only  one's  fortune,  but  one's  mind.  You  may  judge 
of  it  by  the  state  of  our  literature.  Many  valuable  books  have  made 

VOL.  i.  14 


SI  4  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1819. 

their  appearance  since  you  left  us,  chiefly  in  the  historical  line,  Ba- 
rante,  Thierry,  Guizot,   Sismondi,   etc.,  and  the  extensive  sale  of 
books  shows  that  we  are  beginning  to  emerge  from  our  intellectual . 
stupor. 

In  my  humble  sphere,  I  have  just  published  a  volume  of  Letters 
on  England,  which  will  be  sent  to  you  from  Paris.*  I  am  told  it  has 
brought  some  practical  ideas  of  liberty  in  circulation,  which  will  per 
haps  induce  me  to  write  another  volume.  In  the  mean  time,  I  am  very 
busy  with  farming,  without  the  slightest  wish,  for  my  friends  or  my 
self,  to  have  any  share  in  the  management  of  public  affairs.  I  am  here 
alone  this  summer.  Broglie  and  my  sister  are  at  their  place  in  Nor 
mandy,  where  I  shall  join  them  in  the  autumn,  after  a  little  journey 
to  the  south  of  France.  Next  year,  if  God  permits,  we  shall  all  be  at 
Coppet.  Pray  come  and  see  us.  I  cannot  reconcile  myself  to  the  idea 
that  you  should  not  pay  us  another  visit ;  and  my  constitution  suffers 
so  much  from  a  sea  voyage,  that  I  have  but  little  hopes  of  seeing 
America,  though  it  be  one  of  my  most  earnest  desires. 

Forgive  this  broken  English  of  mine,  and  believe  me  most  faith 
fully  yours.  Sis  felix  et  memor  nostri. 

A.  STAEL. 

*  These,  and  some  other  of  M.  de  Stael's  writings,  were  collected  after  his 
death,  forming  three  volumes,  with  a  biographical  notice  of  him,  written  by  his 
sister.  In  this  short  memoir  is  a  remarkable  account  given  by  him,  in  a  letter 
to  his  mother,  of  an  interview  he  had,  when  he  was  but  seventeen  years  old, 
with  Napoleon  I.,  whom  he  sought  in  Savoy,  as  he  passed  through,  and  pleaded 
with  him  for  his  mother,  then  exiled  from  Paris  and  persecuted  by  the  Emperor. 


.  27.]  HIS  RETURN  TO  BOSTON.  315 


CHAPTEE   XVI. 

Return  to  Home  Life.  —  Circle  of  Friends.  —  Inauguration  as  Professor 
at  Harvard  College.  —  Entrance  on  College  Duties.  —  Literary  Life.  — 
Religious  Opinions.  —  Mr.  Webster's  Oration  at  Plymouth.  —  Story 
of  Edheljertha. 

ME.  TICKNOE  reached  home,  after  his  four  years'  absence, 
on  the  6th  of  June,  1819.  He  returned  with  character 
matured  by  unusual  experience  of  men ;  with  rare  learning  and 
accomplishments,  acquired  by  diligent  and  systematic  study;  and 
with  tastes  cultivated  and  disciplined  by  acquaintance  with  the 
best  society  of  Europe.  The  object  of  his  residence  abroad  had 
been  to  prepare  him  for  a  career  of  useful  activity  at  home,  and 
he  came  back  full  of  ardor  to  use  his  various  gifts  and  acquisi 
tions  for  the  benefit  of  the  community  to  which  he  belonged. 
There  was  nothing  in  him  of  the  trifler  or  the  dilettante. 

There  would  have  been  small  ground  for  surprise,  if,  after  a 
period  so  crowded  with  interests  from  sources  in  which  America 
had  no  share,  Mr.  Ticknor  had  felt  something  like  depression  at 
the  prospect  of  the  comparative  barrenness  of  life,  as  regards  aes 
thetic  pursuits,  in  this  Western  world.  But  it  was  not  so.  His 
affectionate  and  cheerful  disposition  made  his  return  happy  for 
himself  and  delightful  to  his  friends.  His  uncommon  social  gifts 
and  animated  spirits,  his  ready  kindness,  and  his  active  energy, 
united  to  make  him  at  once  an  important  member  of  society, 
both  in  the  circle  of  the  cultivated,  and  in  that  of  the  public-spir 
ited  men  of  business  in  his  native  place. 

Boston  was  still  a  compact  town  of  scarcely  more  than  forty 
thousand  inhabitants,  with  the  best  conditions  for  healthy  social 
intercourse,  —  leisure  combined  with  considerable  commercial  ac 
tivity  ;  equality,  inasmuch  as  there  was  neither  a  pauper  class 


316  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1819. 

nor  an  accumulation  of  great  wealth  in  a  few  hands ;  general 
education ;  and  that  familiarity  of  each  with  all,  which  becomes 
impossible  in  great  cities.* 

An  unusual  number  of  men  of  character,  and  distinction  in 
various  professions,  had  gradually  gathered  here,  and  with  all 
the  most  eminent  of  these  Mr.  Ticknor  was  closely  associated 
from  this  time  forward.  With  Mr.  Webster,  who  had  become  a 
resident  of  Boston  during  his  absence  in  Europe  ;  with  the  Rev. 
Dr.  William  Ellery  Channing;  with  Dr.  Bowditch,  the  eminent 
mathematician,  who,  like  Webster,  had  lately  made  his  home  here ; 
with  Edward  and  Alexander  Hill  Everett ;  with  Washington 
Allston,  the  artist ;  with  the  Prescotts,  father  and  son ;  and  with 
many  others  worthy  to  be  ranked  beside  them,  cultivated  women 
as  well  as  men,  Mr.  Ticknor  found  himself  at  once  in  congenial, 
appreciative,  and  animating  society.  Of  these  advantages  he 
was  by  taste  and  principle  ready  to  avail  himself  to  the  utmost. 

There  was  a  remarkable  constancy  in  his  friendships  ;  all  those 
which  took  an  important  place  in  his  life  being  terminated  only 
by  death.t  In  his  old  age  he  still  had  friends  whom  he  had 
counted  as  such  for  sixty  years,  although  he  had  outlived  so 
many.  With  regard  to  two  of  those  intimacies  which  colored 

*  "A  more  peculiar  and  unmixed  character,"  wrote  Mr.  William  Tudor  in 
tins  very  year,  "  arising  from  its  homogeneous  population,  will  be  found  here 
than  in  any  other  city  in  the  United  States.  There  is  none  of  the  show  and  at 
tractions  of  ostentatious  and  expensive  luxury,  but  a  great  deal  of  cheerful, 
frank  hospitality,  and  easy  social  intercourse.  In  short,  if  a  man  can  limit  his 
wishes  to  living  in  a  beautiful  country,  among  a  hospitable  people,  where  he 
will  find  only  simple,  unobtrusive  pleasures,  with  a  high  degree  of  moral  and 
intellectual  refinement,  he  maybe  gratified." — Letters  on  the  Eastern  States, 
p.  319. 

t  On  his  seventy-sixth  birthday  Mr.  Ticknor  made  a  memorandum  which  was 
preserved,  and  which  may  appropriately  be  introduced  here.  It  is  headed, 
"  Aug.  1,  '67.  Persons  with  whom  I  have  lived  in  long  friendship,"  and  contains 
the  names  of  sixteen  early  friends,  and  the  dates  of  the  commencement  of  each 
acquaintance.  They  are  these  :  Curtis,  C.  P.,  from  1793  ;  Everett,  E.,  1806  ; 
Everett,  A.  H.,  1806 ;  Prescott,  W.  H.,  1808 ;  Webster,  D.,  1808,  but  also 
slightly  1802,  1805,  1807  ;  Haven,  N.  A.,  1808  ;  Daveis,  C.  S.,  1809  ;  Gardiner, 
R.  H.,  1812  ;  Story,  J.,  1815  ;  Allston,  W.,  1819.  Others  who  survive,  Cur 
tis,  T.  B.,  from  1795  ;  Thayer,  S.,  1805 ;  Bigelow,  J.,  1808  ;  Savage,  J.,  1809 ; 
Mason,  W.  P.,  1809;  Cogswell,  J.  G.,  1810.  Five  of  these  gentlemen  out 
lived  him. 


JE.  27.]  PRESCOTT  AND  WEBSTER.  317 

and  added  interest  to  his  life  in  the  period  now  opening  before 
him,  his  own  record  has  already  been  printed. 

How  he  came  to  know  and  love  the  charming,  earnest,  gifted 
Prescott,  his  junior  by  four  years,  he  has  told  in  the  memoir 
which  he  survived  to  write ;  and  how  he  became  a  constant  vis 
itor,  and  an  affectionate  admirer  of  Prescott's  parents,  —  the  wise 
and  noble-minded  judge,  and  his  vigorous,  benevolent,  animated 
wife.*  He  also  describes  his  finding  young  Prescott  in  Paris  in 
1817,  when  he  arrived  from  Germany,  and  the  illness  through 
which  he  watched  with  him,  adding  :  "  It  was  in  that  dark  room 
that  I  first  learned  to  know  him,  as  I  have  never  known  any 
other  person  beyond  the  limits  of  my  immediate  family ;  and  it 
was  there  that  was  first  formed  a  mutual  regard,  over  which,  to 
the  day  of  his  death,  —  a  period  of  above  forty  years,  —  no  cloud 
ever  passed."  The  first  friends  to  welcome  him  on  his  return 
were  the  Prescotts,  parents  and  son  ;  and  thenceforward  he  was 
always  treated  by  them  and  theirs  as  if  he  had  been  of  their  kin 
and  blood. 

His  affectionate  and  intimate  relations  with  Mr.  Webster  — 
whose  great  and  commanding  intellect,  and  generous,  genial  na 
ture,  always  inspired  in  him  an  undeviating  confidence  and  sym 
pathy  —  are  set  forth  in  the  reminiscences  he  contributed  to 
the  memoir  of  the  statesman  written  by  his  nephew,  George 
Ticknor  Curtis.  This  intercourse,  maintained  for  fifty  years, 
was  most  animated  and  stimulating  ;  different  in  its  nature  and 
manifestations  from  that  with  Prescott,  but  delightful,  and  tend 
ing  to  develop  in  Mr.  Ticknor  the  broad  and  invigorating  inter 
est  in  public  affairs  which  was  inherent  in  his  views  of  manly 
duty. 

Some  there  were,  whose  names  have  been  or  will  be  men 
tioned  from  time  to  time  in  these  pages,  who  are  less  known, 

*  His  letters  from  Europe,  to  his  father  and  mother,  frequently  contain  mes 
sages  to  Mrs.  Prescott.  On  the  5th  August,  1816,  we  find  the  following  :  "  Re 
member  me  very  particularly  to  Mrs.  Prescott,  whose  kindness  to  you,  dearest 
mother,  I  can  never  forget.  It  is  not  impossible  that  I  shall  meet  her  son 
somewhere  in  Europe,  and  if  I  do  I  shall  rejoice  in  the  opportunity  of  repaying, 
in  a  way  which  I  am  sure  will  be  most  welcome  to  her,,  some  of  the  debt  she 
has  thus  laid  upon  me." 


318  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1819. 

and  who  did  not  preserve  the  letters  they  received  from  Mr. 
Ticknor,  so  that  they  appear  less  prominently ;  but  their  influ 
ence  on  his  happiness  was,  nevertheless,  great,  and  his  delight 
in  their  culture  and  their  characteristic  qualities  was  an  impor 
tant  element  in  his  experience.  One  of  these  was  Joseph  Green 
Cogswell,  who,  though  five  years  his  senior,  survived  him  a  few 
months ;  of  whom  he  writes  in  1820,  "He  is  the  same  admirable 
creature,  full  of  zeal  for  everything  good,  and  everything  that 
will  promote  the  cause  of  learning,  not  exactly  like  other  people, 
and  not,  perhaps,  exactly  as  other  people  would  like  to  have 
him,  but  always  disinterested,  always  scattering  good  knowledge 
about  him  wherever  he  goes,  and  always  exciting  an  enthusiasm 
for  it  in  those  he  meets,  from  the  excess  of  his  own."  And 
again  in  1842,  after  speaking  of  Cogswell's  great  acquirements, 
he  adds :  "  I  have  known  him,  familiarly,  above  thirty  years, 
have  travelled  with  him  and  lived  with  him,  months  together, 
and  yet  never  saw  him  unreasonably  or  disagreeably  out  of  tem 
per He  is  always  pleasant  in  personal  intercourse,  under 

all  circumstances,  to  a  degree  which,  I  think,  I  have  never  known 
in  any  other  man."  * 

Another  was  Francis  Galley  Gray,  whose  immense  and  varied 
stores  of  accurate  knowledge  were  scarcely  made  available  to  any 
except  those  who  enjoyed  his  personal  acquaintance ;  but  whose 
conversation,  enriched  by  them,  was  invaluable  to  his  friends, 
among  whom  none  was  more  faithful,  or  in  more  constantly  fa 
miliar  relations,  than  Mr.  Ticknor.  t 

*  Mr.  Cogswell's  attachment  to  Mr.  Ticknor,  which  lasted  through  their 
joint  lives,  was  thus  expressed  in  a  letter  written  in  1814  :  "  George's  affection 
has  been  very  dear  to  me.  He  has  entered  into  my  feelings,  he  has  loved  those 
that  I  did,  he  has  felt  an  unfeigned  sympathy  in  my  sorrow,  he  has  uniformly 
sought  my  happiness  and  shared  my  unlimited  confidence.  Besides,  I  was 
proud  in  being  known  to  be  his  friend  ;  when  I  was  walking  with  him  I  loved 
to  meet  those  who  knew  me  ;  as  his  companion  I  felt  myself  welcome  wherever 
I  went."  Mr.  Cogswell,  then  twenty-eight  years  old,  had  already  seen  the 
world,  and  endured  severe  trials. 

t  In  the  Preface  to  his  "History  of  Spanish  Literature,"  Mr.  Ticknor  calls  Mr. 
F.  C.  Gray  "  a  scholar  who  should  permit  the  world  to  profit  more  than  it  does, 
by  the  large  resources  of  his  accurate  and  tasteful  learning  "  ;  and  Mr.  Prescott 
said  of  him,  "  I  think  he  was  the  most  remarkable  rnan  I  ever  knew,  for  variety 


jE.  28.]  INDUCTION  TO  HIS  PROFESSORSHIP.  319 

Jacob  Bigelow,  the  eminent  and  acute  physician,  the  shrewd 
and  witty  companion,  and  James  Savage,*  warm-hearted,  loyal, 
indefatigable,  faithful  to  every  obligation  of  friendship  from 
youth  to  age ;  the  exact  and  enthusiastic  genealogist ;  quaint, 
vehement,  and  the  very  soul  of  integrity,  of  whom  Mr.  "Web 
ster  once  wrote,  "  He  is  as  true  a  man  as  I  know  of ;  he  would 
appear  very  awkward  if  he  were  to  make  trial  —  and  try  his 
best  —  to  think  wrong  or  to  feel  wrong  "  ;  —  these  both  were 
among  his  earliest  friends,  and  contributed  their  quota  to  his 
resources  of  enjoyment,  as  well  as  of  intellectual  stimulus. 

Established  in  his  father's  house,  and  surrounded  by  an  ample 
and  well-selected  library,  which  he  had  purchased  with  labor  and 
care  in  Europe,  t  Mr.  Ticknor  entered  with  zeal  on  the  discharge 
of  many  duties,  and  the  immediate  preparations  for  his  professor 
ship  in  Harvard  College.  He  persevered  in  his  habit  of  early 
rising,  and  devoting  his  whole  morning  to  study.  Domestic  and 
social  claims,  a  wide  correspondence,  and  the  multiplied  casual 
interests  that  demand  the  attention  of  a  character  like  his,  filled 
the  remaining  hours  of  the  day  to  overflowing. 

His  formal  induction  to  the  Professorships  of  the  French  and 
Spanish  Languages,  and  of  the  Belles-Lettres,  his  appointment  to 
which  has  already  been  mentioned,  took  place  in  the  church  at 
Cambridge,  on  the  10th  of  August,  1819,  scarcely  more  than  two 
months  after  his  arrival  from  Europe.  Mr.  Norton  entered  on 
the  same  day,  and  with  the  same  ceremony,  the  Dexter  Profes 
sorship  of  Sacred  Literature,  and  each  of  the  new  professors  de 
livered  an  inaugural  address  before  a  cultivated  and  sympathetic 

and  fulness  of  information,  and  a  perfect  command  of  it.  He  was  a  walking 
encyclopaedia.  I  have  seen  many  men  who  had  excellent  memories,  provided 
you  would  let  them  turn  to  their  libraries  to  get  the  information  you  wanted  ; 
but  no  matter  on  what  subject  you  talked  with  him,  his  knowledge  was  at  his 
fingers'  ends,  and  entirely  at  your  service."  —  Life  of  Prescott,  Appendix  F. 

*  Mentioned  ante,  p.  2,  as  a  friend  of  the  father,  he  survived  the  son,  living 
to  the  great  age  of  eighty-seven.  He  was  the  author  of  a  "  Genealogical  Diction 
ary  of  the  First  Settlers  of  New  England,"  in  four  volumes,  a  work  of  the  high 
est  value. 

t  Though  the  Journal  contains  no  allusion  to  it  and  his  letters  very  few,  yet 
it  had  been  one  of  his  constant  occupations,  in  every  country  he  visited,  to  buy 
books.  He  confined  himself  to  collections  of  literature,  for  he  wanted  the  books 
as  the  instruments  of  his  labor.  The  Spanish  collection  was  already  remarkable. 


320  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1819. 

audience,  which  filled  the  old  church,  and  for  whom  such  an 
opportunity  of  listening  to  the  utterance  of  the  ripest  scholar 
ship  America  could  then  boast  was  an  occurrence  of  no  small 
interest. 

Mr.  Ticknor's  discourse  was  fresh  and  appropriate;  its  style 
rich,  animated,  yet  simple;  and  its  topics  varied  and  compre 
hensive  enough  to  embrace  the  range  of  the  duties  assigned  to 
him.  An  extract  from  the  portion  on  Spanish  literature,  asso 
ciating  itself  with  his  later  labors,  will  be  sufficient  to  show  its 
tone :  — 

In  modern  times  no  poetry  has  sprung  so  directly  from  the  popu 
lar  feelings,  or  exercised  so  great  an  influence  on  the  national  charac 
ter,  as  that  of  the  Peninsula,  beyond  the  Pyrenees.  This  rich  and 
admirable  country,  standing  hi  some  measure  between  Europe  and 
Africa,  served,  for  above  seven  centuries,  as  the  advanced  guard  of 
Christendom  against  the  attacks  of  the  Arabs,  who  then  threatened 
to  overrun  Europe,  as  they  had  already  overrun  the  half  of  Asia. 
In  these  conflicts  —  where,  during  four  hundred  years,  the  Spaniards 
were  uniformly  beaten,  without  ever  shrinking  —  a  national  character 
was  gradually  formed,  in  which  chivalry  and  religion  were  mingled 
and  confounded  by  the  cause  in  which  they  were  alike  engaged  ; 
while,  at  the  same  time,  the  bitterness  of  an  hereditary  animosity,  that 
tolerated  neither  compromise  nor  hesitation,  was  admirably  softened 
down  into  a  splendid  gallantry  and  heroic  emulation  of  excellence, 
by  the  generous  virtues  and  higher  refinement  of  their  Moorish  ene 
mies.  This  spirit,  —  which  the  histories  of  Zaragoza  and  Girona 
prove  to  be  still  burning  in  the  veins  of  the  lower  classes  of  the 
people  of  Spain,  as  it  was  in  the  days  of  Cordova  and  Granada,  — 
this  spirit  has  always  been  apparent  in  their  poetry. 

From  the  first  outpourings  of  its  rude  admiration  for  heroes 
whom  it  has  almost  made  fabulous,  down  to  the  death  of  Cadahalso 
before  Gibraltar,  and  the  self-sacrifice  of  Jovellanos,  it  has  never 
had  but  one  tone  ;  and  that  tone  has  been  purely  and  exclusively 
Spanish,  nourished  by  a  high  moral  feeling,  and  a  proud  and  preva 
lent  sense  of  honor,  loyalty,  and  religion.  It  breaks  upon  us  with 
the  dawn  of  their  modern  history,  in  their  unrivalled  ballads  ;  the 
earliest  breathings  at  once  of  poetical  and  popular  feeling  among 
them,  whose  echoes,  like  the  sweet  voice  of  Ariel  amidst  the  tumults 
of  the  tempest,  come  to  us  in  the  pauses  of  that  tiemendous  war 
fare  which  seems,  alternately,  one  merciless  and  interminable  battle 


M.  28.]  LETTER  TO  DR.   KIRKLAND.  321 

wasting  generation  after  generation,  and  a  single  wild  adventure  run 
ning  through  whole  centuries  of  romance  and  glory.  We  trace  it, 
too,  hardly  less  in  their  drama,  which  is  so  truly  national  that  it 
seems  to  belong  to  their  character,  like  a  costume,  and  springs  so 
immediately  from  their  wants  and  feelings  that,  as  we  read,  we  are 
persuaded  they  would  have  invented  it,  if  antiquity  had  not  given 
them  the  example. 

And  finally  we  see  it  in  the  individual  lives  of  their  authors, 
which  have  been,  to  an  unparalleled  degree,  lives  of  adventure  and 
hazard,  —  in  Garcilaso,  whose  exquisite  pastorals  hardly  prepare  us 
for  the  heroic  death  he  died,  before  the  face  of  his  .Emperor ;  in 
Ercilla,  who  wrote  the  best  of  Spanish  epics  at  the  feet  of  the  Andes, 
amidst  the  perils  of  war,  and  in  the  wastes  of  the  wilderness  ;  in 
Lope  de  Vega  on  board  the  Armada,  and  in  Cervantes,  wounded  at 
Le panto,  and  a  slave  in  Barbary  ;  in  Quin tana's  prison,  and  Mora- 
tin's  exile.  Indeed,  like  its  own  Alhambra,  —  which  was  not  merely 
the  abode  of  all  that  was  refined  and  graceful  and  gentle  in  peace 
and  in  life,  but  the  fearful  fortress  of  military  pride  and  honor, 
amidst  whose  magnificent  ruins  the  heart  still  treasures  up  long 
recollections  of  gallantry  and  glory,  —  the  poetry  of  Spain  seems  to 
identify  itself  with  achievements  that  belong  rather  to  its  history  ; 
and,  as  it  comes  down  to  us  through  the  lapse  of  ages,  almost  realizes 
to  our  fancy  the  gorgeous  fables  and  traditions  of  the  elder  times. 

On  the  day  preceding  his  inauguration,  Mr.  Ticknor  wrote  a 
letter  to  President  Kirkland,  giving  fully  his  idea  of  the  duties 
of  the  two  professorships,  and  of  the  mode  in  which  they  should 
be  fulfilled.  "We  give  some  portions  of  it. 

BOSTON,  August  9,  1819. 

DEAR  SIR,  —  You  have  desired  me  to  give  you  a  projet  of  the 
instructions  it  may  seem  most  advisable  to  give  under  the  Smith 
Professorship  of  the  French  and  Spanish  Languages  and  Literatures, 
and  the  College  Professorship  of  the  Belles-Lettres.  Each,  as  it 
seems  to  me,  should  be  considered  separately. 

The  claims  of  the  Smith  Professorship,  which  should  be  first  satis 
fied,  seem  to  divide  themselves  into  tw©  parts,  each  requiring  a  dis 
tinct  course  of  lectures,  which  it  will  probably  be  desirable  to  bring 
in  aid  of  the  instructions  of  the  teacher  in  the  French  and  Spanish 
languages,  so  that  the  whole  of  the  Smith  establishment  may  tend  to 
one  purpose,  and  operate  on  the .  same  individuals.  I  should  think, 
14*  v 


322  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1819. 

therefore,  that  a  course  of  lectures  on  French  literary  history  and 
criticism,  amounting  perhaps  to  about  twenty,  delivered  in  the  lat 
ter  part  of  each  year,  to  those  who  have  made  the  most  progress  in 
the  language,  would  be  usefuL  To  increase  their  utility,  perhaps  it 
would  be  well  to  take  three  hours  in  the  week,  on  days  not  occu 
pied  with  instruction  in  the  language,  and  give  two  of  them  to 
lectures,  and  the  third  to  an  examination  of  the  pupils,  both  in 
what  they  have  learnt  from  the  French  teacher,  and  what  they  have 
heard  of  the  professor's  lectures,  which  I  will  make  in  French  to 
those  who  are  able  and  disposed  to  exercise  themselves  in  speaking 
the  language.  This  course  would  seem  to  close  up  the  studies  of 
those  who  should  be  about  to  leave  the  instruction  of  the  French 
teacher ;  and  to  them  I  would  propose  to  confine  it,  as  I  do  not  think 
it  would  be  useful  to  any  others. 

The  other  course,  which  would  be  on  Spanish  literary  history 
and  criticism,  may  be  made  in  the  same  way,  and  be  delivered  as 
often,  accompanied  with  a  similar  examination ;  but,  as  it  would 
not  be  quite  so  long,  —  if  the  rale  of  relative  importance  is  to  be 
observed,  and  a  very  few  would  attend  it,  —  I  should  like  to  have  it 
extemporaneous,  both  because  I  think  more  can  be  taught  in  this 
way,  where  the  number  of  the  instructed  is  small,  and  because  I 
should  like  to  exercise  myself  in  this  form  of  instruction. 

Both  courses,  it  seems  to  me,  should  be  given  merely  to  teach,  never 
attempting  to  produce  a  popular  effect ;  and  as,  in  this  case,  utility 
would  be  their  only  object,  I  am  disposed  to  think  the  attendance  on 
them  should  be  only  by  those  persons  who  have  made  some  progress 
under  the  instructions  of  the  French  teacher,  and  that  there  should 
be  such  an  understanding  and  concert  between  him  and  the  lecturer 
as  to  make  the  Smith  establishment  one  whole,  through  their  joint 
efforts. 

Under  any  arrangement,  however,  these  things  seem  to  be  im 
portant,  —  that  the  attendance  should  be  purely  voluntary,  that  the 
course  should  not  be  divided  into  two  parts  and  delivered  in  succes 
sive  years,  and  that  the  class  should  never  be  large,  since  my  only 
object  here,  too,  would  be  to  teach,  and  this  can  be  best  done  where 
the  number  is  small. 

Turning  next  to  the  claims  of  the  second  professorship,  he 


The  belles-lettres,  in  general,  —  comprehending,  of  course,  all  the 
elegant  literatures  of  Europe,  from  the  earliest  times  of  Greece  to 


M.  28.]  PLANS  FOR  LECTURES.  323 

our  own,  —  form  a  subject  for  instruction  much  more  extensive,  and 
one  much  more  calculated  to  be  generally  useful  and  interesting, 
than  any  of  those  literatures  separately. 

He  then  gives  a  sketch  of  a  course  in  four  divisions,  covering 
ancient  and  modern  literature,  poetry,  and  prose ;  and  in  conclu 
sion,  he  says,  — 

I  have  been  thus  minute  in  explaining  the  kind  of  lectures  I 
have  thought  of  delivering  under  the  second  professorship,  for  three 
reasons  :  1.  That  the  wide  extent  of  the  subject  being  considered,  I 
may  be  allowed  to  spread  it  through  more 'lectures  than  usually  form 
a  course.  I  should  be  sorry  to  be  restricted  to  fewer  than  sixty. 
2.  That  in  consideration  of  the  intimate  connection  between  the 
different  parts  of  the  plan,  and  the  importance  of  sustaining  the 
attention  and  interest  through  the  whole,  I  may  be  permitted  to 
deliver  them  all  in  as  short  a  time  as  possible.  Perhaps  four  or  five 
in  each  week  during  their  continuance,  and  an  examination  one  other 
day,  would  not  be  found  oppressive.  3.  That,  as  I  have  no  experience 
in  instruction,  my  plan  may  be  examined  by  those  who  have  ;  since 
I  consider  it  merely  a  project,  which  I  shall  be  more  pleased  to  adapt, 
in  any  way,  to  the  practical  wants  of  the  University,  than  to  retain 
it  as  it  is. 

I  am  not  aware  that  any  other  lectures  than  such  as  I  have  indi 
cated,  or  some  resembling  them,  would  now  be  useful.  At  any  rate, 
these  are  sufficient  to  occupy  me  for  yet  a  long  time  to  come  ;  but 
if,  hereafter,  others  that  would  naturally  fall  within  my  depart 
ment  should  seem  to  be  wanted,  I  shall  always,  hold  myself  ready 
to  prepare  them,  as  far  as  my  health  and  talents  and  knowledge  will 
permit. 

Yours  very  respectfully, 

GEO.  TICKNOR. 

The  comprehensive  plan  here  sketched  for  the  department  of 
belles-lettres  was  never  carried  out.  In  establishing  this  pro 
fessorship,  the  Corporation  had  neither  specifically  defined  the 
duties  of  the  professor,  nor  known  how  far  those  duties  were 
included  in  other  established  professorships.  When,  therefore, 
Mr.  Ticknor  thus  laid  before  the  President  his  ideas  of  what  the 
courses  should  be,  it  was  found  that  the  Greek  classics  were 
assigned  to  the  Greek  Professor;  and  that  the  Professor  of 


324  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1819. 


Rhetoric  was  required,  by  statute,  to  "  examine  and  compare  the 
properties  of  ancient  aud  modern  languages,"  and  "  to  delineate 
the  characteristic  features  of  the  most  celebrated  Greek,  Eoman, 
and  English  historians,  orators,  poets,  and  divines."  Here  were 
two  very  considerable  sections,  of  what  most  scholars  would 
regard  as  belonging  to  the  department  of  belles-lettres,  already 
in  the  charge  of  other  teachers.  Obviously  a  revision  of  the 
different  statutes  might  have  been  made,  and  the  duties  of 
the  separate  professors  clearly  denned,  but  nothing  of  the  kind 
was  done.  In  answer  to  the  preceding  letter  of  August  9,  the 
President  simply  stated  these  facts  to  Mr.  Ticknor,  who  writes 
in  reply  :  "  This,  of  course,  very  much  narrows  the  ground  of 
the  professorship  of  belles-lettres,  though  it  still  leaves  it  as 
wide,  I  suppose,  as  I  could  occupy  with  profit.  At  any  rate,  it 
would  be  far  from  unpleasant  to  me  to  have  it  understood,  that 
these  branches  of  the  belles-lettres  are  already  occupied,  and 
that  it  will  not  be  expected  of  me  to  give  any  part  of  my  atten 
tion  to  them." 

For  some  time  Mr.  Ticknor  suffered  from  delays  in  establish 
ing  rules  for  his  department,  from  imperfect  rules,  and  from 
their  inefficient  enforcement ;  and  he  often  remonstrated,  always 
evincing  a  desire  to  have  the  means  of  producing  more  inter 
est,  more  ambition  of  scholarship,  and  better  opportunities  of 
progress  for  the  students,  at  whatever  cost  of  labor  to  himself. 
His  whole  attitude  toward  the  College  was  that  of  one  ani 
mated  by  ardent  zeal  to  promote  the  cause  of  good  learning ; 
and  in  spite  of  many  discouragements,  arising  from  the  condition 
of  the  College  government,  and  from  the  general  standard  of 
scholarship  in  the  community,  he  persevered,  with  an  earnestness 
and  patience  which  could  not  fail  to  have  a  marked  and  increas 
ing  effect.  He  entirely  succeeded  in  rousing  and  holding  the 
attention  of  his  classes  ;  and  the  love  of  letters  was  quickened  in 
them,  not  only  by  his  words  and  manner,  but  by  the  example 
they  saw  in  him,  of  one  who  had  deliberately  chosen  the  pur 
suit  of  literature,  rather  than  yield  to  the  allurements  of  a  life 
of  unprofitable  leisure,  or  to  those  of  a  more  lucrative  profession. 

His  work  in  preparing  lectures  on  the  literatures  and  the  lit- 


&.  28.]  MANNER  OF  LECTURING.  -  325 

erary  histories  of  France  and  Spain  was  thorough  and  elaborate, 
the  work  of  an  ardent  and  conscientious  scholar,  who  borrowed 
no  learning  at  second  hand  which  he  could  obtain  from  the 
primitive  sources,  and  neglected  no  means  for  forming  indepen 
dent  and  -correct  judgments.  His  lectures  thus  became  a  body 
of  consecutive,  historic  criticism,  in  which  the  intrinsic  quali 
ties  of  the  works  under  discussion  were  made  to  illustrate  the 
progressive  development  in  culture  of  the  nations  to  which  their 
authors  belonged. 

His  manner  of  thought  and  expression  was  simple,  direct, 
and  fluent ;  not  distinguished  so  much  by  originality  of  view  or 
brilliancy  of  phrase,  as  by  excellent  sense  and  judicious  arid 
accurate  statement.  At  the  same  time  his  voice  and  style  of 
speaking,  his  brilliant  eye  and  animated  countenance,  his  whole 
bearing,  as  he  sought  to  put  himself  in  close  communication  with 
the  minds  of  the  young  men  before  him,  had  much  magnetic 
attraction.  He  doubtless  kept  in  mind  his  observations  in 
Germany  and  France,  and  Goethe's  remark  to  him,  that  "  elo 
quence  does  not  teach." 

He  did  not  read  from  a  manuscript,  after  the  first  term,  and 
thus  the  magnetism  of  the  eye  and  the  face  was  not  lost.* 
Lord  Brougham  said  in  his  inaugural  discourse  at  Glasgow,  that, 

*  The  students  were  provided  with  a  printed  syllabus  of  the  arrangement  of 
his  subject.  That  of  the  Spanish  lectures  was  printed  in  1823,  and  the  follow 
ing  extract  is  taken  from  the  preface  to  it,  adopting  one  or  two  verbal  changes 
made  by  Mr.  Ticknor  in  an  interleaved  copy.  "The  Lectures  on  the  History 
and  Criticism  of  Spanish  Literature,  for  which  the  present  syllabus  has  been 
prepared,  are  about  thirty-four  in  number,  each  an  hour  in  length.  In  print 
they  would  amount  to  two  octavo  volumes.  They  are  prepared  for  private 
classes,  in  Harvard  College,  and  delivered,  three  or  more  in  each  week,  so  long 
as  the  course  continues.  The  subject  to  which  they  are  devoted  is,  in  many 
respects,  new  in  EuVope,  and  in  this  country  quite  untouched.  The  Span 
iards  themselves  have  no  work  of  history  or  criticism  embracing  the  whole  of 
their  literature,  or  even  its  best  portions ;  and  in  England  and  in  Italy  noth 
ing  has  been  done  to  assist  them Both  Bouterwek  and  Sismondi  com 
plain  of  the  want  of  access  to  a  sufficient  collection  of  Spanish  books,  and  their 
respective  histories  have  certainly  suffered  from  it.  This  want  I  have  not  felt. 
Accidental  circumstances  have  placed  within  my  control  a  collection  of  works 
in  Spanish  literature  nearly  complete  for  such  purposes.  The  deficiencies, 
therefore,  which  will  be  found  in  this  course  of  lectures  ....  are  not  to  be 
imputed  to  the  want  of  materials." 


326  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1819. 

other  things  being  equal,  he  who  has  written  most  will  speak 
best.  Mr.  Ticknor  had  written  so  much,  that  his  spontaneous 
language  took  a  periodic  form,  and  his  discourse,  if  taken  down 
by  a  stenographer,  might  have  gone  to  the  press  with  hardly 
any  correction.  He  did  not  make  his  hearers  impatient  by  em 
barrassing  pauses,  nor  yet  uncomfortable  by  the  over-rapid  utter 
ance  which  implies  the  want  of  self-possession  and  self-control. 

Mr.  G.  T.  Curtis  says,  in  a  letter  of  reminiscences  of  his 
uncle  :  — 

He  always,  in  my  time,  fixed  and  kept  the  attention  of  his  class  ; 
indeed,  there  was  never  any  movement  or  sound  in  the  lecture-room 

that  evinced  an  absence  of  attention He  followed  the  very 

exact  and  methodical  order  of  his  syllabus,  introducing  discussions 
which  were  always  animated  and  sometimes  eloquent 

An  audience  of  college  students  is,  to  be  sure,  no  very  formidable 
body  to  a  grown  man.  But  you  *  and  I  have  both  heard  Mr.  Tick 
nor  lecture  before  large  and  mixed  audiences  of  ladies  and  gentlemen, 
with  no  other  appliances  than  he  used  in  the  College  class-room,  but 
with  the  same  fluency  and  ease,  and  at  the  same  time  in  a  manner 
adapted  to  the  assembly  before  him.  On  all  occasions  his  diction  was 
both  copious  and  precise.  The  sum  of  my  testimony  is,  that  his  lec 
turing  was  as  successful  teaching  as  I  have  ever  listened  to. 

Xo  man  could  be  more  liberal  in  the  use  of  his  time  and  his 
knowledge,  for  the  assistance  of  individual  scholars,  or  for  the 
promotion  of  the  interests  of  general  education.  His  library, 
which  was  freely  open  to  any  one  who  desired  to  consult  books 
contained  in  it,  included  many  works  then  scarcely  to  be  found 
in  any  other  American  library,  public  or  private.  Many  were 
the  hard-working  students  who  were  able  to  pursue  their  inves 
tigations  by  the  aid  of  its  treasures,  and  who  received  from  Mr. 
Ticknor  friendly  encouragement  and  judicious  counsel.  Mr.  Cur 
tis  says  again  :  — 

He  very  early  began,  and  always  continued,  the  habit  of  lending 
his  books  freely,  taking  no  other  precaution  than  to  write  down  the 
title  of  the  volume,  and  the  name  of  the  borrower,  in  a  note-book. 
The  number  of  volumes  lent  was  often  considerable.  He  would  lend 
a  book  to  any  respectable  person,  whether  personally  known  to  him 

*  The  letter  is  addressed  by  Mr.  Curtis  to  Mr.  Hillard. 


IE..  29.]  KELIGIOUS  CHARACTER.  327 

or  not,  if  lie  perceived  that  it  was  really  desired  for  use.  His  books 
have  been  sent  to  Maine,  New  Hampshire,  even  to  Baltimore,  and 
other  distant  places,  for  the  use  of  scholars  who  could  get  them  in  no 
other  way. 

The  strong  religious  impressions  which  Mr.  Ticknor  received 
in  early  years  deepened,  as  his  character  matured,  into  personal 
convictions,  that  confirmed  the  ruling  principles  of  his  life.  He 
had  been  brought  up  in  the  doctrines  of  Calvinistic  Orthodoxy, 
but  later  serious  reflection  led  him  to  reject  those  doctrines  ;  and 
soon  after  his  return  from  Europe  he  joined  Dr.  Channing's 
church,  of  which  he  continued  through  life  a  faithful  member. 
He  was  a  sincere  Liberal  Christian,  and  his  convictions  were  firm, 
but  they  were  held  without  bigotry,  and  he  never  allowed  them 
to  interfere  with  kindliness  and  courtesy. 

The  Eev.  E.  S.  Gannett,  for  many  years  his  pastor  and  friend, 
wrote  a  notice  of  Mr.  Ticknor  after  his  death,*  in  which  he 
called  him  "  a  scholar,  —  we  wish  to  lay  emphasis  on  the  fact,  — 
whose  faith  clung  to  the  gospel  of  Christ,  and  who  recognized 
in  him,  whose  name  is  the  burden  of  the  New  Testament,  a 
messenger  of  the  Divine  will,  and  a  ruler  over  human  souls." 

He  maintained  a  cordial  interest  in  the  church  of  which  he 
was  a  member,  and  early  took  a  class  of  boys  in  its  Sunday 
school,  founded  in  1822,  which  he  kept  for  eight  years,  receiv 
ing  it,  during  the  last  year,  in  his  own  library  on  Sunday  morn 
ings.  Some  of  the  members  of  this  class  who  are  now  living, 
gentlemen  engaged  in  different  professions,  retain  pleasant  recol 
lections  of  its  meetings.  Later,  in  1839-40,  he  gave  a  course 
of  instruction  on  the  history  of  the  contents  of  the  Bible,  to  a 
class  of  young  girls,  including  his  eldest  daughter,  for  which  he 
prepared  himself  carefully,  and  the  notes  he  made  for  it  were 
found  among  his  papers. 

In  December,  1820,  Mr.  Ticknor  joined  a  party  of  friends 
who  went  to  Plymouth  to  attend  the  celebration  of  the  two-hun 
dredth  anniversary  of  the  landing  of  the  Pilgrims,  and  to  hear 
Mr.  Webster's  oration  on  the  occasion.  His  fresh  impressions 

*  The  article  is  entitled  "  A  Christian  Scholar,"  and  appeared  in  the  "  Old 
and  New,"  May,  1871. 


328  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1820. 

of  this  memorable  discourse,  and  of  the  effect  it  produced,  are 
given  in  the  following  letter.* 

PLYMOUTH,  Thursday  Evening,  December  21. 

....  We  set  off  this  morning  at  half  past  eight  precisely.  Our 
own  party  consisted  of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  I.  P.  Davis,  Miss  Russell,  Frank 
Gray,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Webster,  Miss  Stockton,  Miss  Mason,  and  myself ; 
but  in  the  course  of  the  forenoon  we  overtook  fifty  or  sixty  persons 
more,  most  of  them  of  our  acquaintance,  and  at  the  dining-house 
i'ound  Colonel  Perkins,  Mrs.  S.  G.  Perkins,  and  Susan.  The  dinner 
was  very  merry,  ....  in  the  afternoon  ride  Mr.  Webster  became 
extremely  interested,  and  I  enjoyed  myself  as  much  as  anybody. 

At  last  we  reached  the  hill  that  opened  the  Bay  of  Plymouth  upon 
us,  and  it  seemed  in  a  moment  as  if  I  were  at  home,  so  familiar  to  me 
were  the  names  and  relations  of  everything  I  saw.  It  was  like  com 
ing  upon  classic  ground,  where  every  object  was  a  recollection  and 
almost  a  history,  —  the  point  of  land  called  the  Governor's  Farm,  be 
cause  it  was  owned  by  the  first  governor  ;  Clarke's  Island,  where  the 
Pilgrims  landed  on  Saturday,  the  20th  December,  1620,  and  kept 
their  Sabbath  with  all  the  severity  of  their  peculiar  notions  of  relig 
ion,  and  refused  to  come  to  the  main  shore  until  Monday  ;  and  finally 
the  very  town  itself,  that  now  covers  and  hides  the  little  spot  they 
consecrated  by  their  first  footsteps. 

The  moment  I  got  out  of  the  carriage  I  set  off  to  see  whatever  the 
daylight  would  still  permit  me  to  enjoy,  of  a  spot  to  which  more  rec 
ollections  tend  than  to  any  other  in  America.  The  first  thing  was  of 
course  the  Rock,  on  which  the  first  boatload  that  came  from  the  May 
flower  landed,  on  Monday,  22d  of  December,  1620.  It  was  already 
surrounded  by  a  crowd  of  the  strangers  who  have  arrived  this  after 
noon,  and  a  cannon  was  mounted  on  it  to  fire  a  forefathers'  salute 
to-morrow  morning. 

I  have  seldom  had  more  lively  feelings  from  the  associations  of 
place  than  I  had  when  I  stood  on  this  blessed  rock  ;  and  I  doubt 
whether  there  be  a  place  in  the  world  where  a  New  England  man 
should  feel  more  gratitude,  pride,  and  veneration  than  when  he  stands 
where  the  first  man  stood  who  began  the  population  and  glory  of  his 
country.  The  Colosseum,  the  Alps,  and  Westminster  Abbey  have 
nothing  more  truly  classical,  to  one  who  feels  as  he  ought  to  feel,  than 
this  rude  and  bare  rock. 

*  An  account  of  this  discourse,  by  Mr.  Ticknor,  appears  in  another  form  in 
the  reminiscences  he  furnished  to  Mr.  Curtis  for  his  "  Life  of  Webster."  See 
that  work,  Vol.  I.  p.  192. 


M.  .29.]  PLYMOUTH.  329 

From  this  interesting  monument  I  went  up  to  the  southern  side 
of  the  sunny  hill,  which  in  that  cold  season  probably  tempted  the 
fathers  to  establish  themselves  here,  and  where  they  pitched  their 
tents  the  first  night ;  and  from  there  went  to  the  height  where  the 
first  victims  of  their  sufferings  and  privations  were  secretly  buried. 
No  stone  marks  the  spot,  and  it  is  only  the  fidelity  of  an  unquestion 
able  tradition  that  has  preserved  its  memory.  In  the  course  of 
December,  —  or  in  eight  days,  —  out  of  one  hundred  and  one  that 
landed,  four  died,  and  in  the  course  of  January  and  February,  forty 
others  ;  so  that  in  a  little  more  than  two  months  their  numbers  were 
diminished  almost  one  half. 

But  they  did  not  dare  to  let  it  be  known,  lest  the  Indians  should 
take  advantage  of  their  weakness,  and  cut  them  off  altogether.  The 
dead,  therefore,  received  no  visible  monument ;  but  the  tears  and  suf 
ferings  and  terrors  of  the  survivors  have  been  to  them  more  than  all 
records  and  memorials. 

It  was  now  nearly  dark,  but  still  I  was  able  to  go  and  see  the  hill, 
or  rather  little  mound,  where  King  Massasoit  came,  in  the  following 
spring,  and  held  a  conference  with  the  poor  reduced  settlers,  and  gave 
them  assurances  of  good-will  which  induced  them  to  remain,  and 
found  an  empire  of  whose  greatness  they  little  dreamt 

This  evening  ....  we  have  had  a  good  deal  of  company,  both  old 
colonists  and  strangers.  The  most  curious  was  Mr.  Sam  Davis, 
brother  to  the  Judge  ;  who,  if  I  understand  his  character  rightly, 
unites  in  his  person  all  the  attributes  of  a  forefather,  and  all  the 
recollections,  traditions,  and  feelings  of  one  of  their  descendants,  so 
that  I  look  upon  him  as  a  kind  of  ghost,  come  down  from  the  seven 
teenth  century  to  preserve  for  us  what  without  him  would  certainly 
have  been  forever  lost.  At  any  rate,  we  found  him  very  interesting, 
very  curious,  and  very  amusing 

The  whole  town  has  the  air  of  a  fete.  The  streets  are  filled  with 
idlers,  lounging  about  to  see  the  curiosities,  or  people  busily  running 
to  and  fro,  to  get  their  quarters  and  make  them  comfortable  ;  the 
houses  and  chambers  are  all  lighted  up,  as  if  there  was  a  party  in 
every  room,  and  a  band  of  military  music  has  been  nearly  all  the  time 
marching  up  and  down  the  street,  followed  by  the  crowd  and  rabble, 
who  seem  to  share  not  a  little  of  the  general  enthusiasm.  Everything, 
in  short,  gives  token  of  a  goodly  day  to-morrow 

Friday  Evening. —  I  have  run  away  from  a  great  levee  there  is  down 
stairs,  thronging  in  admiration  round  Mr.  Webster,  to  tell  you  a  little 
word  about  his  oration.  Yet  I  do  not  dare  to  trust  myself  about  it, 


330  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1820. 

and  I  warn  you  beforehand  that  I  have  not  the  least  confidence  in 
my  own  opinion.  His  manner  carried  me  away  completely ;  not,  I 
think,  that  I  could  have  been  so  carried  away  if  it  had  been  a  poor 
oration,  for  of  that  I  apprehend  there  can  be  no  fear.  It  must  have 
been  a  great,  a  very  great  performance,  but  whether  it  was  so  abso 
lutely  unrivalled  as  I  imagined  when  I  was  under  the  immediate  in 
fluence  of  his  presence,  of  his  tones,  of  his  looks,  I  cannot  be  sure  till 
I  have  read  it,  for  it  seems  to  me  incredible. 

It  was  on  the  point  of  time  where  we  now  stand,  both  in  relation 
to  our  ancestors  and  to  posterity  ;  and  he  discussed  it,  first,  as  to  the 
Pilgrims  who  came  here,  what  they  suffered  at  home  and  on  their 
arrival,  and  how  different  were  the  principles  of  colonization  from 
those  m  Greece,  Eome,  and  the  East  and  West  Indies  ;  secondly,  as 
to  the  progress  of  the  country,  and  its  situation  an  hundred  years  ago, 
compared  with  what  it  is  now,  in  which  he  drew  a  fine  character  of 
President  Adams  ;  thirdly,  as  to  the  principles  of  our  governments, 
as  free  governments,  —  where  he  had  a  tremendous  passage  about 
slavery,  —  as  governments  that  encourage  education,  —  where  there 
was  a  delightful  compliment  to  President  Kirkland,  — '•  and  as  govern 
ments  founded  on  property ;  .  .  .  .  and  finally,  in  the  fourth  place,  as 
a  great  people  welcoming  its  posterity  to  the  enjoyment  of  blessings 
which  all  the  rest  of  the  world  cannot  offer,  with  which  he  ended  in 
a  magnificent  flood  of  eloquence. 

I  was  never  so  excited  by  public  speaking  before  in  my  life.  Three 
or  four  times  I  thought  my  temples  would  burst  with  the  gush  of 
blood  ;  for,  after  all,  you  must  know  that  I  am  aware  it  is  no  con 
nected  and  compacted  whole,  but  a  collection  of  wonderful  fragments 
of  burning  eloquence,  to  which  his  manner  gave  tenfold  force.  When 
I  came  out  I  was  almost  afraid  to  come  near  to  him.  It  seemed  to 
me  as  if  he  was  like  the  mount  that  might  not  be  touched,  and  that 
burned  with  fire.  I  was  beside  myself,  and  am  so  still. 

We  went  this  morning  to  the  Kegistry  Office,  where  are  records  of 
some  sort  or  other,  from  as  early  as  1623,  and  where  we  saw  the  hand 
writing  of  the  venerable  Elder  Brewster,  and  all  the  documents  that 
give  us,  as  it  were,  a  more  distinct  ancestry  than  any  other  people  on 
the  globe.  Then  we  went  to  the  burying-ground,  where  rest  the 
bones  of  one  of  the  Pilgrims  of  1620  ;  the  only  one  who  lived  so  far 
into  settled  times  that  it  was  safe  to  bury  him  with  a  gravestone. 
After  that  to  the  oration,  from  which  we  went  with  all  our  recollec 
tions,  all  our  burning  feelings,  to  the  Rock,  and  stood  there,  just  two 
centuries  from  the  moment  when  the  first  Pilgrims  landed. 


JE.  29.]  EDHELJERTHA.  331 

Saturday  Morn,  23d.  —  When  I  had  gone  thus  far,  I  returned  down 
stairs,  to  see  if  I  might  be  excused  from  going  to  the  ball,  and  talked 
quite  hoarse,  and  looked  more  than  usually  heavy,  to  sustain  my  pre 
tensions.  But  there  seemed  to  be  no  means  of  escape So  I 

made  a  merit  of  necessity,  and  went  as  gayly  as  if  I  had  gone  from 
choice  ;  at  least,  I  thought  I  did.  The  room  was  enormously  full,  four 
hundred  persons  at  least,  and  my  spirits  soon  fell  in  proportion  to  the 
crowd.  I  walked  up  and  down  with  Palfrey,  and  talked  about  Col 
lege  ;  and  with  Eliza  Buckminster ;  .  .  .  .  and  with  Mrs.  Webster ; 
....  but  as  for  dancing,  I  could  not  undertake  it.  At  half  past  ten 
I  brought  home  Mrs.  Webster  and  Mrs.  Perkins,  ....  and  was  very 
glad  to  sit  down  with  a  delightful  circle  about  the  fire 

Mr.  Webster  was  in  admirable  spirits.  On  Thursday  evening  he 
was  considerably  agitated  and  oppressed,  and  yesterday  morning  he 
had  not  his  natural  look  at  all  ;  but  since  his  entire  success,  he  has 
been  as  gay  and  playful  as  a  kitten.  The  party  came  in  one  after 
another,  the  spirits  of  all  were  kindled  brighter  and  brighter,  and  we 
fairly  sat  up  till  after  two  o'clock.  I  think,  therefore,  we  may  now 
safely  boast  the  Plymouth  Expedition  has  gone  off  admirably. 

Parts  of  two  letters,  written  in  the  following  year,  contain  the 
particulars  of  a  singular  story,  of  which  the  mystery  has  never 
been  explained,  but  of  which  this  authentic  account  seems  wor 
thy  of  insertion  here. 


To  S.  A.  ELIOT,  LONDON. 

BOSTON,  August  7, 1821. 

....  Great  noise  and  interest  has  been  made  here  lately  about  a 
young  man,  Edheljertha,  a  Swede  of  about  thirty,  of  much  learning, 
who  came  out  here  perfectly  authenticated  to  Mr.  William  Parsons,  as 
a  poor  young  man  of  respectable  connections,  and  a  thorough  educa 
tion,  who  was  entitled  to  an  estate  in  the  West  Indies,  which  was 
violently  withheld  from  him  by  a  Spaniard.  His  money  failed  him 
here  ;  but  he  declined  receiving  any  from  Mr.  Parsons  until  he  should 
know  something  more  about  his  claim  ;  and  undertook  to  earn  his 
bread,  first  by  working  at  the  composition  of  acids,  with  a  man  who 
lives  on  the  Neck,  and  afterwards,  as  that  affected  his  health,  in  the 
Botanical  Garden  at  Cambridge,  where  his  botanical  knowledge  was 
soon  found  important. 


332  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1821. 

Cogswell  took  him  into  the  library,  to  help  make  catalogue ;  but 
about  this  time  he  received  an  anonymous,  threatening  letter,  which 
very  much  alarmed  him,  in  his  unprotected  state  as  a  stranger,  for 
Cogswell  was  then  gone Soon  afterwards  he  believed  him 
self  poisoned  in  a  very  strange  way,  and  had  dreadful  fits,  but  in  all 
else  preserved  the  simplicity  of  his  character,  and  the  apparent  sanity 
and  consistency  of  his  mind.  A  few  evenings  since,  however,  he  set 
out  to  walk  into  Boston,  and  was  found  at  daybreak  on  the  beach  in 
Marblehead,  much  bruised,  saying  he  had  been  forcibly  carried  there 
in  a  boat,  from  which  he  escaped,  though  fired  at  when  he  ran  and 
dreadfully  ill-treated  during  the  passage.  He  was,  evidently,  slightly 
deranged,  but  has  preserved  entire  consistency  in  his  story  ever  since, 
though  he  has  once  had  a  perfect  access  of  insanity. 

Now  upon  this  statement  of  facts  the  town  is  grievously  exercised 
and  divided.  His  testimonials  and  documents  are  all  so  clear  and 
sure,  and  his  life  such  a  perfect  confirmation  of  them,  that  very  few 
believe  him  to  be  an  impostor,  while,  on  the  other  hand,  many  — 
among  whom  are  the  Parsonses,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Farrar,  President  Kirk- 
land,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Peck,  etc.  —  believe  the  whole  of  his  stories, 
think  he  really  was  poisoned  and  kidnapped,  and  that  his  life  is  con 
stantly  in  a  mysterious  danger,  which,  with  his  sufferings,  has  pro 
duced  transient  and  slight  affections  of  insanity. 

The  greater  part,  however,  think,  I  believe,  that  in  consequence  of 
his  situation,  the  anonymous  letter,  and  his  poor  health,  he  has  be 
come,  quoad  hoc,  deranged,  and  that,  in  his  derangement,  he  took  the 
laudanum  ;  .  .  .  .  perhaps  went  on  board  a  boat  for  Marblehead,  and 
became  so  outrageous  that  they  tied  him  ;  or,  perhaps,  wandering  all 
night,  had  fits,  in  which  he  was  bruised,  etc.,  etc.  In  short,  in  our 
healthy,  well-organized  community,  it  is  not  possible  that  a  man 
should  be  persecuted  in  this  way  for  several  weeks,  without  getting 
some  trace  of  the  invisible  agents  ;  and  when  to  this  it  is  added,  that 
his  stories  are  improbable,  and  almost  impossible  in  themselves,  and 
that  he  certainly  has  been  seen  deranged  twice,  —  once  of  which  was 
immediately  after  he  thinks  he  was  kidnapped,  —  I  should  find  it  very 
difficult  to  think  of  him  either  better  or  worse  than  of  an  interesting 
and  unfortunate  crazy  man 

September  6 I  wrote  you  the  last  time  a  good  deal  about 

Edheljertha,  the  Swede.  That  mystification  still  continues  to  an 
extraordinary  degree  ;  but  as  far  as  I  can  find  out,  this  is  the  story 
now  believed  by  those  who  have  been  most  satisfied,  not  only  of  his 
honesty,  —  which  hardly  any  doubt,  —  but  of  his  sanity.  He  was 


M.  30.]  A  STRANGE  STORY.  333 

brought  up  as  the  twin  son  of  a  deceased  clergyman,  whose  widow 
died  while  he  was  quite  young,  and  who  had  a  brother  in  business  at 
Vera  Cruz.  His  education  was,  however,  totally  different  from  that 
of  his  brother,  much  higher,  more  refined,  luxurious,  and  careful,  and 
out  of  proportion  to  the  family  means.  When  he  left  the  University 
of  Upsala,  where  he  acquired  no  small  amount  of  learning,  he  entered 
the  army,  rose  with  unaccountable  rapidity,  and  at  last  was  placed 
near  the  person  of  Prince  Oscar. 

While  there,  about  twenty-three  or  twenty-four,  he  received  a  letter 
purporting  to  be  from  his  uncle  at  Vera  Cruz,  saying  he  was  rich,  and 
promising  to  make  him  his  heir,  if  he  would  come  out  there.  On  his 
proposing  to  go,  the  Prince  endeavored  to  detain  him  ;  but,  on  the 
whole,  he  thought  the  American  prospect  of  fortune  quite  as  good  as 
the  Swedish ;  and,  having  some  love  for  adventure  besides,  he  pro 
vided  himself  with  all  necessary  papers,  and  embarked  for  Boston. 
Here  he  received  other  letters,  saying  his  uncle  was  dead,  and  he 
must  wait.  Then  came  the  anonymous  threats,  as  from  a  person  who 
possessed  his  uncle's  estate,  and  was  determined  to  keep  it  ;  then  the 
alleged  poisoning  ;  then  the  kidnapping  to  Marblehead,  etc.,  as  I  told 
you  before. 

Since  then,  he  has  generally  been  in  a  high  state  of  nervous  ex 
citement,  sometimes  extremely  ill ;  .  .  .  .  his  hearing  failed  him, 
his  tongue  was  so  swollen  he  could  not  speak,  and  he  was  constantly 
agitated,  whether  awake  or  asleep,  by  slight  convulsions. 

....  In  this  state,  Mr.  Froden,  the  Swedish  Consul,  being  about 
to  return  home,  arrangements  were  made  to  have  him  put  on  board 
the  same  vessel,  so  privately  that  any  persons  here  employed  to  annoy 
or  poison  him  should  know  nothing  of  it ;  and  a  fortnight  ago  he 
sailed,  leaving  all  still  in  doubt  and  mystery. 

Those  most  familiar  with  the  circumstances  of  the  case  believe  him 
to  be  the  son  of  some  considerable  personage,  who  being  about  to 
acknowledge  him,  those  who  had  an  opposite  interest,  under  pretence 
of  this  South  American  estate,  ....  had  spirited  him  away  ;  while 
the  rest  of  us,  who  are  told  we  know  nothing  about  the  secret  history 
of  the  matter,  believe  it  to  be  a  singular  case  of  insanity.  All  agree 
that  his  sufferings  have  been  dreadful,  and  his  character  and  conduct, 
while  here,  singularly  simple  and  interesting.  The  rest,  time  must 
show. 

Time  has  not,  however,  brought  any  satisfactory  solution  of 
this  mystery,  which  remains,  like  the  fate  of  Caspar  Hauser, 
unexplained. 


334  LIFE  OP  GEORGE  TICKNOE.  [1821. 


CHAPTER    XVII. 

Death  of  his  Father.  —  Marriage.  —  Domestic  Life.  —  Visits.  —  Chan 
cellor  Kent.  —  General  Lafayette.  —  Winter  in  Washington  and 
Virginia. 


two  years  succeeding  Mr.  Ticknor's  return  from  Europe 
-JL  thus  sped  quietly  and  happily  by;  but  in  June,  1821,  a 
great  sorrow  came  close  on  a  great  joy,  his  father's  unexpected 
death  taking  place  between  his  own  engagement  and  marriage. 
Something  of  what  he  then  underwent  is  described  in  the  fol 
lowing  passage  from  a  letter  to  Mr.  Charles  Daveis,  written 
August  4,  1821  :  — 

You  know  our  journey  taken  on  Mr.  Norton's  marriage.*  There 
was  never  anything  more  delightful.  We  went  first  to  New  York, 
....  then  up  the  North  River,  and  to  the  beautiful  Lake  George, 
and  Lake  Champlain  .....  But  the  whole  party  was  disposed,  from 
the  first,  to  give  me  the  pleasure  of  seeing  my  father  at  Hanover, 
where  he  went  early  in  May,  some  weeks  before  we  left  Boston  ;  and 
we  therefore  crossed  the  Green  Mountains,  and  came  down  by  the 
exquisite  banks  of  the  White  River,  to  its  confluence  with  the  Con 
necticut.  The  two  last  days  of  this  ride  were,  certainly,  the  most  gay 
and  delightful  of  the  gayest  and  most  delightful  journey  I  ever  took 
in  my  life. 

On  the  afternoon  of  Saturday,  the  16th  of  June,  I  rode  on  in  the 
chaise  with  Anna,  leaving  the  coach  behind,  and  arrived  at  Hanover 
quite  early,  to  see  my  father  the  sooner.  The  first  news  I  heard,  in 
reply  to  the  first  question  I  asked  at  the  inn,  was,  that  he  had  had 
an  access  of  paralysis  the  afternoon  previous.  I  hastened  to  him 
instantly,  and  did  not  leave  him.  except  a  moment  at  a  time,  until 
his  death  the  following  Friday  morning.  It  was,  as  you  may  well 

*  Prof.  Andrews  Norton  (mentioned  ante,  p.  319)  had  recently  married 
Miss  Catherine  Eliot,  sister  of  Miss  Anna  Eliot,  to  whom  Mr.  Ticknor  was 
engaged. 


M.  30.]  MARRIAGE.  335 

imagine,  a  stunning  blow  to  fall  on  me  at  such  a  moment I 

am  not  superstitious,  but  I  shall  never  believe  there  was  nothing 
providential  in  the  arrangement,  which,  contrary  to  our  purposes, 
brought  us  to  Hanover  just  at  the  moment  I  was  wanted,  —  if  we  had 
been  permitted  to  fulfil  our  purposes,  we  should  have  passed  Hanover, 
and  yet  not  have  arrived  at  home,  so  that  there  would  have  been  no 
hope  of  getting  me  there  even  for  the  closing  scene,*  —  and  gave  me 
there  the  support  of  so  many  dear  friends,  and  especially  the  dear 
est,  which  I  could  otherwise  not  have  asked,  Then,  too,  my  father's 
faculties  were  all  preserved  clear  to  him,  ....  and  what  was  more 
than  all,  and  above  all,  he  was  ready  to  go,  and  those  who  were  with 
him  saw  proofs  not  to  be  mistaken,  that  when  he  came  to  his  death 
bed,  he  found  he  had  placed  his  hopes  safely,  and  that  he  had  nothing 

to  do  but  to  die His  death  was  to  him  like  any  important 

occurrence  of  his  life,  only  much  more  solemn  ;  and  he  spoke  of  it, 
and  marked  its  approach  —  until  within  a  few  hours  of  his  last  mo 
ment  —  with  a  tranquillity  whose  foundation  could  never  have  been 
laid  in  this  world 

On  the  18th.  of  September  Mr.  Ticknor  was  married  to  Miss 
Anna  Eliot,  youngest  daughter  of  Mr.  Samuel  Eliot,  a  success 
ful  merchant,  and  a  man  of  strong  character  and  cultivated 
mind,  who  will  be  remembered  as  the  founder  of  the  Professor 
ship  of  Greek  Literature  at  Harvard  College,  t  This  marriage 
brought  with  it  new  and  happy  influences,  but  it  made  no 
marked  change  in  the  habits  of  his  life  as  a  scholar  and  teacher. 
His  disposition  and  tastes  found  their  full  exercise  and  expres 
sion  in  his  home,  and  that  home  was  thenceforth,  for  many 
years,  a  brilliant  and  genial  centre  of  the  most  cultivated  society 
of  Boston.  The  fortune  he  inherited  from  his  father  —  together 
with  that  of  his  wife  —  enabled  him  to  live  at  ease,  with  unpre 
tending  elegance.  In  nothing  was  he  extravagant  or  luxurious, 
while  his  personal  habits  were  marked  by  great  moderation  and 
simplicity.  His  means  were  ample,  not  only  for  the  mainte 
nance  of  a  liberal  and  tasteful  establishment,  but  for  the  increase 

*  Some  delays  had  occurred  in  the  early  part  of  the  journey,  and  he  here 
means  that,  but  for  these,  their  visit  in  Hanover  would  have  occurred  some  days 
earlier. 

t  Mr.  Eliot  had  died  the  previous  year. 


336  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1322. 

of  his-  library,  and  for  the  multiplied  demands  of  private  charity, 
and  of  benevolent  institutions,  to  which  he  gave  both  money 
and  much  personal  service. 

As  soon  as  he  had  a  house  of  his  own,  he  enjoyed  the  ability 
it  gave  him  to  welcome  his  friends  from  distant  places,  and 
during  the  winter  of  1821-22,  Daveis,  Haven,  and  Cogswell 
were  at  different  times  his  guests.  These  visits  did  not,  how 
ever,  disturb  the  steady  course  of  his  industrious  life,  and  he 
writes  in  February  :  "  I  -have  been  very  quietly  at  home  all  win 
ter;  no  visiting  abroad,  much  writing  of  lectures,  much  study 
ing  of  Italian  between  Anna  and  my  nieces,  and  once  a  week 
Artiguenave  —  who  is  a  first-rate  French  reader  —  has  read  us 
a  French  play."  In  April  he  says  to  Mr.  Daveis,  "  My  lectures 
have  given  me  a  good  deal  of  occupation,  —  three  delivered,  and 
one  written,  every  week,  —  and  besides  all  this,  as  it  is  found 
I  am  willing  to  work,  work  enough  is  put  upon  my  shoulders, 
so  that,  after  all,  I  am  abroad  much  more  than  I  like  to  be, 
though  almost  never  for  my  amusement." 

One  of  the  matters  to  which  he  thus  referred  is  the  subject 
of  the  following  paragraph,  from  another  letter  to  Mr.  Daveis  :  — 

I  want  to  say  a  word  or  two  to  you  and  Mr.  Nichols,  about  the 
interests  of  a  society  which  I  have  considerably  on  my  heart  and 
conscience.  It  is  the  one  called  the  "  Publishing  Fund,"  whose  object 
is  to  furnish  wholesome  religious,  moral,  and  improving  reading  of  all 
kinds  to  the  poor,  cheaper  than  they  now  get  fanatical  or  depraving 
reading.  For  this  purpose  a  fund  has  been  raised,  ....  on  which 
we  mean  regularly  to  trade  at  a  very  small  profit,  getting  our  printing 
done  as  cheaply  as  possible,  and  making  everybody  else  work  almost 

for  charity's  sake Think  of  this  good  work,  then,  and  come 

over  into  Macedonia  and  help  us. 

Upon  his  father's  death  he  was  chosen  to  succeed  him  in  the 
Primary  School  Board,  and  continued  a  member  of  it  for  three 
years,  giving  much  time  and  thought  to  its  duties,  moved  as 
well  by  his  own  strong  interest  in  the  subject  of  education,  as 
by  respect  to  his  father's  memory. 

From  this  animated,  but  regular  and  quiet  winter  life,  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Ticknor  turned,  as  the  summer  came,  to  the  pleasant 


IE.  31.]  VISITS  TO  FRIENDS.  337 

variety  of  visits  to  their  friends.  They  passed  some  weeks  at 
the  delightful  summer  home  of  Judge  Prescott  at  Pepperell, 
which  has  now  become  a  point  of  interest  in  the  literary  history 
of  the  country,  from  its  association  with  the  studies  of  his  dis 
tinguished  sou.  They  were  the  guests  of  Mr.  Haven  at  Ports 
mouth,  and  of  Mr.  Daveis  at  Portland,  both  of  whom,  sur 
rounded  by  young  families,  were  diligently  engaged  in  the 
practice  of  the  law ;  but  both  retained  that  love  of  literature 
which  had  been  so  strong  a  bond  of  sympathy  between  the 
friends  in  their  early  days.  From  Portland  they  went  farther 
east  to  the  country-place  of  Mr.  Eobert  H.  Gardiner,  on  the 
Kennebec,  long  the  seat  of  an  extended  and  elegant  hospitality, 
like  that  which  forms  so  graceful  a  feature  in  the  country  life  of 
England.  It  is  thus  described  by  Mr.  Ticknor,  in  a  letter  to 
Mrs.  Eliot :  — 

We  finished  our  delightful  visit  on  the  Kennebec,  dear  mother, 
last  Wednesday  morning,  and  came  away  with  great  regret.  Mr. 
Gardiner's  house  is  certainly  the  pleasantest  country  establishment  in 
New  England.  The  local  situation  is  so  beautiful ;  the  grounds  are 
so  happily  diversified,  and  cultivated  with  sxich  taste  ;  the  house  is  of 
such  fine  architecture  without,  and  so  convenient  within  ;  and  the 
family  is  so  well  ordered,  the  tone  of  its  intercourse  so  gentle,  simple, 
and  refined,  that,  besides  being  happy  in  the  enjoyment  everything 

about  him  affords,  a  visitor  can  hardly  help  being  made  better 

Everybody,  from  a  sort  of  unseen  genius  of  place,  feels  at  once  all 
wants  anticipated,  and  yet  a  perfect  freedom 

After  their  return  he  writes  thus  to  Mr.  Daveis  :  — 

BOSTON,  September  4,  1822. 

MY  DEAR,  CHARLES,  —  We  made  a  very  pleasant  journey  home 
ward,  not,  indeed,  withoiit  some  feelings  of  regret  that  we  were 
obliged  to  make  it  so  soon,  and  arrived  here  just  at  the  tinae  we  pro 
posed.  The  next  afternoon  my  faithful  agent  from  New  Hampshire 
made  his  punctual  appearance,  and  I  had  two  days  of  good  work  to 
go  through.*  .... 

We  had  a  very  pleasant  visit  indeed  with  you  in  Portland,  and  in 
truth  the  whole  of  our  Eastern  excursion  will  be  long  remembered 

*  This  agent  was  an  old  Quaker,  called  Friend  Williams. 
VOL.    I.  15  V 


338  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TTCKNOR.  [1823. 

among  the  bright  spots  in  our  recollections.  For,  after  all,  it  ia  not 
to  be  denied  that  —  even  in  partibus  —  a  certain  sort  of  happiness  is 
pretty  equally  distributed,  and  that,  in  the  wide  extent  of  your  wil 
dernesses,  wild-flowers  may  be  found  —  after  long  and  uncertain  in 
tervals  —  of  no  common  beauty  and  fragrance We  were,  non 
sense  apart,  very  much  struck  with  your  happiness  in  each  other,  and 
the  many  pleasures  you  have  in  common  ;  because  you  are  so  few, 
that  your  intimacy  is  perfect ;  and  it  is  a  pleasure  we  shall  not  easily 
forget,  that  we  were  permitted  to  mingle  in  it,  as  if  we  had  been  one 
of  you,  and  share  a  sort  of  domestic  life  which  can  exist  neither  in  a 
large  city  nor  in  the  country  ;  and  which  is,  perhaps,  on  many  of  the 
best  accounts,  better  than  either.  .... 

The  following  extract  shows  his  immediate  appreciation  of  one 
of  the  early  products  of  American  literature  :  — 


To  N.  A.  HAVEN,  PORTSMOUTH. 

February,  1823. 

....  I  hope  you  will  have  seen  Tudor's  book*  before  you  get 
this.  Certainly  you  will  like  it  when  you  do  see  it,  for  it  really 
gives  the  best  representation  possible,  and,  indeed,  what  may  be  called 
a  kind  of  dramatic  exhibition,  of  the  state  of  feeling  in  New  England 
out  of  which  the  Revolution  was  produced.  There  is  nothing  like  it 
in  print,  —  that  I  have  ever  seen,  —  among  our  materials  for  future 
history,  nor  could  such  a  book  be  made  twenty  years  hence,  for  then 
all  the  traditions  will  have  perished  with  the  old  men  from  whose 
graves  he  has  just  rescued  them.  It  takes  prodigiously  here,  and  will, 
I  think,  do  much  good  by  promoting  an  inquiry  into  the  most  inter 
esting  and  important  part  of  our  history. 

In  the  autumn  of  1823  Chancellor  Kent  —  who  had  been 
compelled,  by  an  unwise  provision  in  the  Constitution  of  the 
State  of  New  York,  to  leave  the  bench,  though  still  in  all  the 
fulness  of  his  great  judicial  powers  —  paid  a  visit  to  Boston, 
and  was  received,  alike  by  lawyers  and  laymen,  with  a  warmth 
of  welcome  due  to  his  talents,  learning,  and  worth.  Mr.  Tick- 
nor  saw  him  often,  and  thus  writes  of  him  to  his  friend  Mr. 
Daveis,  and  to  his  brother-in-law  Mr.  Eliot :  — 

»  The  "  Life  of  James  Otis,"  by  William  Tudor.    Boston,  1823. 


M.  32.]  CHANCELLOR  KENT.  339 

To  C.  S.  DAVEIS,  PORTLAND. 

BOSTON,  September  19,  1823. 

MY  DEAR  CHARLES,  —  ....  Your  very  gay  and  happy  letter 
of  the  23d  of  August  came  in  one  morning  just  as  the  Chancellor 
was  with  me,  and  we  were  setting  off  for  Nahant.  I  had  the  pleas 
ure,  too,  that  day  of  taking  him  to  Salem,  to  Judge  Story,  and  mak 
ing  them  acquainted ;  after  which  we  all  came  to  the  new  hotel,* 
and  with  Mr.  Otist  had  a  very  merry  time  indeed. 

He  is,  in  his  conversation,  extremely  active,  simple,  entertaining, 
and  I  know  not  when  we  have  had  among  us  a  man  so  much  to  my 
mind  in  all  things.  I  dined  with  him  five  or  six  times,  and  he  dined 
with  us  the  last  day,  and  a  rare  display  of  fine  talk  we  had  at  table, 
between  him,  Mr.  Prescott,  Mr.  Lowell,  and  Mr.  Webster.  .... 
Everybody  was  delighted  with  him.  His  whole  visit  among  us  was 
an  unbroken  triumph,  which  he  enjoyed  with  the  greatest  open 
ness 

I  carried  him  to  Quincy  to  see  President  Adams  and  Mr.  J.  Q. 
Adams,  ....  and  we  met  them  afterwards  at  table  at  Mr.  Quincy's. 
Mr.  J.  Q.  Adams  made  a  most  extraordinary  attack  on  the  character 
of  Chancellor  Bacon,  saying  that  his  Essays  give  proof  of  a  greater 
corruption  of  heart,  of  a  more  total  wickedness,  than  any  book  he 
ever  saw.  Our  New  York  Chancellor  expressed  the  most  simple  and 
natural  astonishment  at  this,  and  we  got  over  the  matter  the  next  day, 
at  dinner,  by  drinking  to  "  the  Memory  of  Chancellor  Bacon,  with  all 
his  faults,"  a  toast  which  Mr.  Prescott  evidently  gave  with  the  great 
est  satisfaction.  Mr.  Quincy  gave  a  beautiful  toast  at  his  own  table, 
which  I  suspect  was  not  the  least  pleasant  to  the  Chancellor,  among 
all  the  delicate  and  indirect  compliments  that  were  offered  to  him 
among  us,  and  which  was  very  appropriate  at  a  table  where  were 
Mr.  J.  Q.  Adams,  Mr.  Prescott,  etc.  It  was,  "  Nature,  who  repeals 
all  political  Constitutions  by  the  great  Constitution  of  mind."  And 
Webster,  on  the  same  occasion,  made  a  pleasant  repartee  in  compli 
ment  to  Mr.  Quincy.  Mr.  Adams,  being  called  on  for  a  toast,  said  to 
Mr.  Quincy,  "  I  will  give  you,  Sir,  the  good  City  of  Boston."  "  That," 
said  Mr.  Webster,  "  we  gave  Mr.  Quincy  long  ago,  ourselves,  with  the 
greatest  pleasure."  t 

*  At  Nahant. 

t  Hon.  Harrison  Gray  Otis. 

t  Hon.  Josiah  Quincy  being  at  this  time  mayor  of  the  newly  made  city  of 
Boston. 


340  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1823. 

Indeed,  the  Chancellor  seemed  to  give  an  uncommon  stir  and 
brightness  to  men's  faculties,  while  he  was  with  us,  ....  there 
seemed  to  be  a  happy  and  healthy  excitement  of  the  intellectual 
powers  and  social  feelings  of  all  with  whom  he  came  in  contact,  that 
was  the  evident  result  of  his  rich  talents  and  transparent  simplicity  of 
character,  and  which  I  have  never  known  to  be  produced  among  us  in 
the  same  degree  by  any  other  individual. 


To  S.  A.  ELIOT,  LONDON. 

BOSTON,  September  13,  1823. 

....  Among  the  strangers  who  have  been  here  this  season,  by  far 
the  most  considerable  is  Chancellor  Kent,  now  superannuated  by  the 
Constitution  of  the  State  of  New  York,  because  he  is  above  sixty 
years  old,  and  yet,  de  facto,  in  the  very  flush  and  vigor  of  his  extraor 
dinary  faculties.  He  was  received  with  a  more  cordial  and  nattering 
attention  than  I  ever  knew  a  stranger  to  be  in  Boston,  and  had  not  a 
moment  of  his  time  left  unoccupied.  He  enjoyed  it  all  extremely, 
and  is  of  such  transparent  simplicity  of  character  that  he  did  not  at 
all  conceal  the  pleasure  he  received  from  the  respect  paid  him  during 
the  ten  days  he  was  with  us.  What  pleased  him  most,  I  suspect,  was 
the  Phi  Beta  *  dinner.  All  the  old  members  attended  it  on  his  ac 
count,  so  that  nearly  a  hundred  sat  down  to  table,  among  whom  were 
Chief  Justice  Parker,  Judge  Davis,  Judge  Story,  Mr.  Prescott,  Sen., 
Mr.  Webster,  etc.  The  whole  was  carried  through,  with  extempora 
neous  spirit,  in  the  finest  style,  and  nothing  faltered,  up  to  the  last 
moment. 

The  best  toasts  we  ever  had  in  this  part  of  the  country  were  given, 
on  requisition  from  the  chair,  at  an  instant's  warning,  and  the  succes 
sion  was  uninterrupted.  Judge  Parker  gave,  "  The  happy  climate  of 
New  York,  where  the  moral  sensibilities  and  intellectual  energies  are 
preserved  long  after  constitutional  decay  has  taken  place  "  ;  and  Judge 
Story  gave,  "  The  State  of  New  York,  where  the  law  of  the  land  has 
been  so  ably  administered  that  it  has  become  the  land  of  the  law  "  ; 
to  which  the  Chancellor  instantly  replied,  "  The  State  of  Massachu 
setts,  the  land  of  Story  as  well  as  of  Song"  ;  and  so  it  was  kept  up  for 
three  or  four  hours,  not  a  soul  leaving  the  table.  At  last  the  Chan 
cellor  rose,  and  the  whole  company  rose  with  him,  and  clapped  him 
as  far  as  he  could  hear  it,  and  then  all  quietly  separated.  It  was  the 

*  Phi  Beta  Kappa  Society  of  Harvard  College. 


JE.  32.]  PETRARCH. 


finest  literary  festival  I  ever  witnessed,  and  I  never  saw  anybody  who 
I  thought  would  enjoy  it  more  than  the  Chancellor  did. 

I  was  with  him  a  great  deal  while  he  was  in  Boston  ;  he  dined  with 
us  the  day  before  he  left ;  and  I  really  think  he  is  not  only  one  of  the 
most  powerful,  but  one  of  the  most  interesting  men  I  ever  saw. 

Mr.  William  H.  Prescott,  who  was  at  this  time  interested  in 
the  study  of  Italian  literature,  addressed  to  Mr.  Ticknor,  on  a 
stormy  day  in  December,  a  letter,  inspired  by  his  reading  of  Pe 
trarch,  in  which,  among  other  things,  he  earnestly  maintained  the 
real  existence  of  Laura.  Mr.  Ticknor,  kept  at  home,  like  his 
friend,  by  the  weather,  replied  at  once  with  equal  interest  in  the 
subject,  but  in  a  more  sceptical  tone,  both  as  to  Laura's  existence 
and  as  to  the  relations  between  her  and  the  poet  who  has  im 
mortalized  her  name. 

Mr.  Prescott's  letter  is  given  in  the  Life  of  him  by  his  friend, 
as  well  as  the  answer  he  made  to  the  following  :  — 

To  WM.  H.  PKESCOTT,  BOSTON. 

17  December,  1823.     Wednesday  Afternoon. 

Your  three  close-written  pages  about  Petrarch,  my  dear  William, 
have  stirred  me  about  him  more  than  I  have  been  before  these  six 
years.  And  having  nothing  to  do,  I  passed  the  whole  morning  in 
the  way  you  had  set  me  out.  I  began  with  whatever  I  had  marked 
in  his  Rime,  and  then  having  some  mind  to  a  greater  acquaintance 
with  himself,  I  read  the  greater  part  of  his  Treatises  De  Remediis 
utriusque  Fortune,  and  De  Vitd  Solitarid ;  and  ended  with  as  many 
of  his  Letters  as  brought  me  to  dinner-time.  The  whole  affair  has 
given  me  great  pleasure.  It  has,  I  think,  once  more  put  me  in  pos 
session  of  the  character  and  feelings  of  Petrarch,  in  the  only  way  in 
which  it  is  possible  to  understand  them  ;  and,  for  aught  I  know,  I 
have  brought  myself  back  —  thanks  to  your  very  pleasant  discussion 
—  much  to  the  same  state  in  which  I  was  when,  on  a  beautiful  spring 
day  in  Provence,  I  read  the  "  chiare,  dolci  e  fresche  acque "  for  the 
last  time  —  till  this  morning  —  by  the  Fountain  of  Vaucluse. 

The  first  question  in  my  thoughts  there,  and  the  only  one  I  thought 
of  as  I  stood  the  next  day  in  the  garden  of  the  Soeurs  de  la  Charite, 
at  Avignon,  is  precisely  the  one  you  have  moved  in  your  letter.  Was 
Laura  a  real  existence,  or,  rather,  was  she  really  a  person  with  whom 


342  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1823. 

Petrarch  was  so  long  and  so  sincerely  in  love  as  his  works  would  imply, 
and  who  filled  as  large  a  space  in  his  heart  as  she  does  in  his  Sonnets. 

There  is  very  little,  I  believe,  said  on  this  point,  in  early  times, 
any  more  than  on  the  Fiammetta  of  Boccaccio,  and  the  Beatrice  of 
Dante.  I  found,  however,  this  morning,  a  reference  in  Tiraboschi  to 
one  of  Petrarch's  own  letters  to  a  member  of  the  Colonna  family  ; 
and,  looking  it  up,  was  surprised  to  see  that  this  intimate  friend  of 
Petrarch  treated  Laura  entirely  as  an  imaginary  existence,  and  that 
the  poet  rather  evaded  the  question  than  contradicted  what  his 
friend  had  said.  "  Believe  me,"  says  he,  "  no  one  can  dissemble  long, 
but  with  great  effort.  But  to  labor  gratuitously,  in  order  to  seem 
mad,  were  the  height  of  insanity."  This  almost  admits  what  Co 
lonna  had  said,  that  his  Laura  was  Lauream  poeticam  merely  ;  or, 
at  any  rate,  it  is  a  mere  evasion.  With  this  interpretation,  however, 
the  world  was  satisfied  until  the  sixteenth  century,  that  is,  for  two 
hundred  years,  when  Vellutello  —  one  of  Petrarch's  commentators 
—  went  to  Avignon  on  purpose  to  discover  something  about  a  sub 
stantial  Laura,  and  of  course  succeeded,  built  up  a  romantic  system 
to  suit  the  poet's  circumstances,  on  a  single  baptismal  entry,  and 
again  satisfied  the  world  for  another  century. 

At  last  the  Abbe  de  Sade  came,  and  published  three  enormous 
folios  about  his  own  city,  his  own  church,  and  his  own  family,  prov 
ing  very  satisfactorily  that  a  certain  Laura  de  Sade  was  living 
between  1308  and  1348,  and  that  he  was  descended  from  one  of  her 
eleven  children,  inferring,  very  ingeniously,  that  she  was  the  Laura 
o*  the  Sonnets.  But  in  1812  a  little  book  was  published  in  Edin 
burgh,  showing  that  all  this  superstructure  of  well-compacted  infer 
ences  lacked  a  sufficient  foundation,  because  the  initials  found  in  the 
tomb  at  Avignon,  on  which  it  was  all  built,  referred  to  somebody 
else.  There,  if  I  understand  the  matter,  the  discussion  still  rests,  so 
far  as  the  external  evidence  is  concerned. 

As  to  the  internal  evidence,  there  is  necessarily  much  more  room 
for  a  free  use  of  weapons,  and,  of  course,  the  contest  has  ranged  much 
more  widely.  A  thousand  passages  have  been  cited,  full  of  the 
sincerest  and  most  natural  passion,  to  prove  that  nothing  but  a 
genuine  attachment  could  have  given  birth  to  the  whole  series  of 
poems  ;  and  these  have  been  answered  by  a  thousand  others,  com 
posed  of  mere  puns  and  conceits,  which  are  as  remote  from  nature  as 
possible.  The  one  you  cite,  of  his  strong  impression  that  Laura  will 
retain  in  heaven  the  features  he  loved  on  earth,  and  that  he  shall  see 
and  love  them  again,  is  no  doubt  eminently  natural ;  but  it  is  applied, 


JE.  32.]  PETRARCH  AND  LAURA.  343 

in  Southey's  "  Curse  of  Kehama,"  by  one  imaginary  being  to  another, 
and  therefore  might  have  been  well  applied  by  a  real  poet  to  a  fan 
cied  mistress.  I  remember,  too,  to  have  seen,  somewhere,  great  trust 
put  upon  the  exquisite  phrase,  "lasciando  tenebroso,  onde  si  move," 
as  too  fresh  from  the  heart  of  a  lover  to  be  considered  mere  poetry  ; 
and  yet  Milton  has  made  Adam  say  of  Eve,  "  She  disappeared,  and 
left  me  dark,"  and  Spenser,  reversing  the  medal,  says,  yet  more  beau 
tifully,  of  Una,  that 

"her  angel's  face 

Could  make  a  sunshine  in  the  shady  place." 

In  short,  this  argument  of  internal  evidence  seems  to  me  to  be  very 
little  applicable  to  poetry  like  that  in  question ;  because,  in  truth,  as 
the  Clown  says  in  "  As  You  Like  It,"  "  what  is  most  feigning  is  most 
poetical,"  and  because  the  Platonizing  period,  in  which  Petrarch  lived, 
filled  the  world  with  imaginations  not  less  extravagant  than  Laura  ; 
and  many  of  them  of  the  same  kind,  which  have  hardly  yet  ceased 
to  be  worshipped  as  realities. 

I  am  not,  however,  willing  to  say  that  Petrarch  found  nothing  in 
nature  to  give  him  the  intimation  of  the  being  he  has  idealized  and 
called  Laura  ;  nor  am  I  willing  to  abandon  those  dates  which  he  has 
given  with  so  much  exactness  in  his  Sonnets,  and  which  I  remember, 
also,  to  have  seen  in  his  own  exquisite  Gothic  hand,  in  his  copy  of 
Virgil,  recording  the  time  when  he  first  saw  her,  and  the  time  of  her 
death.  It  seems  to  me  it  cannot  all  have  been  a  mere  fiction  ;  and 
yet  I  think  that  the  fat,  happy,  patriotic  citizen  and  poet,  who 
travelled  all  over  Europe,  and  who  studied  more  books  than  any 
man  of  his  time,  and  who  lived  so  much  in  the  houses  and  confi 
dence  of  Princes  and  Cardinals,  is  little  likely  to  have  been  the 
pining,  suffering  lover  he  so  exquisitely  represents.  That  he  was 
iu  love,  I  do  not  doubt.  That  he  chose  a  lady  of  his  heart,  that 
he  saw  her  first  at  church,  in  April,  1327,  and  that  she  died  in 
1348,  —  as  he  has  so  exactly  marked  it  in  his  Sonnets,  —  seems  fill 
very  reasonable.  But  it  remains  to  be  proved  from  his  works,  or 
in  any  other  way,  that  he  was  among  her  acquaintance  or  friends,  or 
that  he  ever  spoke  to  her.  Not  one  line  intimates  that  she  ever 
vouchsafed  him  a  word  of  kindness  or  favor.  He  was  satisfied,  I 
apprehend,  to  consider  her  a  bright  and  beautiful  vision  ;  "  to  behold 
though  but  her  utmost  skirts  of  glory,  and  far  off  her  steps  adore." 

He  formed  a  circle  of  dreams  and  wishes  for  his  heart,  and  she  was 
the  centre  of  them,  but  that  was  all.  She,  perhaps,  knew  nothing 
of  his  passion,  and,  at  any  rate,  lived  on  in  undisturbed  happiness 


344  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOk  [1824. 

with  her  husband,  and  became  the  mother  of  eleven  children.  In 
her  death  —  if  Laura  de  Sade  were  indeed  the  object  of  his  poetry  — 
he  lost  nothing.  The  thought  of  her  in  another  and  better  world 
rather  gave  his  fancy  a  new  means  and  freer  excitement ;  and  as  he 
had  already,  during  twenty  years,  employed  his  imagination  in  deco 
rating  her  with  unearthly  charms,  so  now  he  continued  yet  ten  years 
longer,  with  rather  increased  enthusiasm,  until  the  flame,  which  had 
been  nourished  almost  entirely  by  his  fancy,  was  at  last  extinguished 
of  itself. 

In  August,  1824,  General  Lafayette  returned,  after  an  inter 
val  of  thirty-eight  years,  to  revisit  the  United  States,  upon  the 
invitation  of  the  President,  and  was  received  everywhere,  as  the 
"  Guest  of  the  Nation,"  with  such  hearty  demonstrations  of  grat 
itude  and  reverence  as  proved  the  depth  of  the  feeling  from 
which  they  sprung,  and  which  still  remains  without  a  parallel. 
In  the  forty-sixth  number  of  the  "  North  American  Eeview,"  pub 
lished  in  1824,  there  appeared  from  Mr.  Ticknor's  pen  a  sketch 
of  the  life  and  character  of  this  illustrious  man,  which,  with  a 
few  alterations  and  additions,  was  subsequently  published  in 
pamphlet  form.  Timely  in  its  appearance,  and  presenting,  in 
appropriate  and  feeling  language,  the  course  of  a  life  of  heroic 
fidelity  to  duty,  it  was  received  with  great  favor,  widely  circu 
lated,  and  afterwards  translated  into  French.* 

It  was  a  great  enjoyment  to  Mr.  Ticknor  to  renew  in  Boston 
his  personal  intercourse  with  the  distinguished  man  whom  he 
had  learned  to  love  and  venerate  in  his  home  at  La  Grange.  He 
had  the  pleasure  of  receiving  General  Lafayette,  more  than  once, 
as  his  guest,  and  after  one  of  these  occasions  he  writes  thus  to 
his  friend  Daveis  :  — 

To  C.  S.  DAVEIS,  PORTLAND. 

BOSTON,  September  28, 1824. 

I  wish  with  all  my  heart,  my  dear  Charles,  that  you  had  come  up 
to  see  us  when  the  old  General  was  here  ;  and  if  I  had  at  all  antici- 

*  In  a  letter  to  Mr.  Ticknor  dated  Paris,  March,  1826,  General  Lafayette 
says  :  "  A  publication  that  has  a  claim  to  my  deep  and  affectionate  gratitude 
has  been  well  translated  in  French,  and  three  editions  carried  away  in  a  few 
mouths.  They  are  preparing,  I  am  told,  a  fourth  edition." 


M,  33.]  GENERAL  LAFAYETTE.  345 

pated  what  kind  and  degree  of  excitement  his  visit  would  produce, 
we  should  have  sent  some  special  summons  to  fetch  you.  But  the 
whole  affair  was  unexpected.  I  mean  the  popular  enthusiasm,  which 
made  everything  go  so  warmly  and  heartily,  and  gave  the  whole  tour 
for  ten  days  the  appearance  of  one  continued  and  beautiful  festival, 
which  every  heart  shared  and  increased. 

I  saw  him  constantly,  because,  on  the  score  of  mere  acquaintance, 
nobody  among  us  knew  half  so  much  of  him  as  I  did,  having  passed 
some  time  at  La  Grange ;  and  it  was  delightful  in  all  cases  —  as  of 
course  it  was  peculiarly  gratifying  in  my  own  —  to  observe  that  he 
uniformly  stopped,  in  the  midst  of  all  the  show  and  bustle  that  con 
stantly  pressed  him,  to  recognize  those  who  had  none  but  the  common 
claims  of  private  regard  on  his  notice. 

On  Sunday  evening  he  supped  with  us,  by  his  own  suggestion  and 
invitation.  As  it  was  Sunday,  we  did  not  wish  or  choose  to  invite 
company.  'We  had,  therefore,  only  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Quincy,  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Prescott,  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Webster.  It  was  then  I  wanted  you, 
for  it  was  the  only  occasion  in  New  England  on  which  he  has  had  a 
quiet  opportunity  to  converse  ;  and  he  talked  most  interestingly  for 
two  hours  on  the  French  Revolution,  Bonaparte,  and  the  Hundred 
Days,  of  all  which  —  or,  at  any  rate,  of  the  first  and  last  —  nobody 
alive  knows  as  much  as  he  does. 

His  whole  visit  here  was  very  fortunate.  Everything  went  on 
without  effort,  because  the  universal  enthusiasm  gave  the  irresistible 
impulse  that  carried  everything  forward  ;  while  on  his  part  he  showed 
great  skill  and  tact,  always  saying  the  right  thing  at  the  right  time, 
and  in  the  right  place.  I  did  not  think,  before  he  was  tried,  that  he 
could  have  done  so  much  and  so  well. 

We  have  passed  the  summer  ....  almost  entirely  in  Boston. 
About  the  first  of  August  we  went  to  Round  Hill  and  Hanover,  but 
that  is  all.  What  the  winter  will  bring  forth,  we  cannot  yet  begin  to 
foresee.  I  shall  lecture  till  late  in  the  autumn.  Then,  if  I  can  per 
suade  A.,  we  shall  go  South,  as  far  as  Charleston But  she  gives 

me  little  encouragement  that  she  will  do  it,  and  yet  seems  willing  to 
go  to  Washington,  Richmond,  and  Monticello,  where  Mr.  Jefferson 
has  again  and  again  written  to  invite  us  to  make  a  visit.  You  may 
therefore  hear  of  us  from  the  midst  of  the  University  of  Virginia,  or 
from  the  bustle  of  the  Presidential  election,  or  we  may  keep  our  own 
fireside  in  quiet  and  peace 

Alexander  Everett  and  his  wife  are  here,  and  we  see  them  quite 
often,  and  find  them  very  pleasant.  They  supped  here  two  evenings 
15* 


346  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1824. 

ago,  with  Gener,  who  was  President  of  the  Cortes  when  the  King  was 
deposed,  and  tells  many  curious  stories  of  those  troubled  times. 

Our  friend  Wallenstein  left  us  last  week,  after  a  visit  of  above  two 
months.  He  is  a  very  uncommon  man,  of  remarkable  acquirements. 
....  I  believe  he  carried  off  the  respect  and  personal  regard  of  every 
distinguished  man  in  this  quarter  of  the  country.*  .... 

In  November,  1824,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Ticknor  went  to  "Washing 
ton,  and  afterwards,  accompanied  by  Mr.  Webster,  visited  Mr. 
Madison  at  Montpellier,  and  Mr.  Jefferson  at  Monticello.  Upon 
their  return  they  passed  some  weeks  in  Washington,  mingling 
in  its  general  society,  and  seeing,  in  an  easy  and  familiar  way, 
many  of  the  distinguished  men  assembled  there.  In  two  letters 
to  Mr.  Prescott,  Mr.  Ticknor  describes  some  of  the  scenes  and 
incidents  of  this  journey.t 

To  WM.  H.  PRESCOTT. 

MONTICELLO,  December  16, 1824. 

Your  letter,  my  dear  William,  followed  us  from  Washington,  and 
was  waiting  here  day  before  yesterday,  when  we  arrived.  We  thank 
you  for  it  very  much,  and  for  all  the  agreeable  intelligence  and  pleas 
ant  talk  it  contained We  have  had  an  extremely  pleasant  visit 

in  Virginia  thus  far,  and  have  been  much  less  annoyed  by  bad  roads 
and  bad  inns  than  we  supposed  we  should  be,  though  both  are  cer 
tainly  vile  enough.  We  left  Washington  just  a  week  ago,  and  came 
seventy  miles  in  a  steamboat,  to  Potomac  Creek,  and  afterwards  nine 
miles  by  land,  to  Fredericksburg 

On  Saturday  morning  we  reached  Mr.  Madison's,  at  Montpellier,  on 
the  west  side  of  what  is  called  the  Southwest  Mountain  ;  a  very  fine, 
commanding  situation,  with  the  magnificent  range  of  the  Blue  Eidge 
stretching  along  the  whole  horizon  in  front,  at  the  distance  of  from 
twenty  to  thirty  miles 

We  were  received  with  a  good  deal  of  dignity  and  much  cordiality, 
by  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Madison,  in  the  portico,  and  immediately  placed  at 

*  In  a  letter  of  June  11,  1824,  Mr.  Ticknor  speaks  of  "the  Baron  de  Wallen 
stein,  now  belonging  to  the  Russian  Legation  at  Washington,  a  young  German 
of  great  knowledge."  The  acquaintance  had  begun  in  Madrid. 

t  An  account  of  this  visit  to  Mr.  Jefferson  is  already  well  known  to  those 
who  are  familiar  with  Mr.  Webster's  Life  by  Curtis,  and  his  papers  published 
by  his  son.  Some  details  and  repetitions  are  therefore  omitted  here. 


M.  33.]  MR.   MADISON.  347 

ease  ;  for  they  were  apprised  of  our  coming  an  hour  or  two  before  we 
arrived,  and  were  therefore  all  in  order,  to  show  a  little  of  that  cere 
mony  in  which  Mrs.  Madison  still  delights. 

Mr.  Madison  is  a  younger-looking  man  —  he  is  now  seventy-four  — 
than  he  was  when  I  saw  him  ten  years  ago,  with  an  unsuccessful  war 
grinding  him  to  the  earth  ;  and  he  is  one  of  the  most  pleasant  men  I 
have  met,  both  from  the  variety  and  vivacity  of  his  conversation.  He 
lives,  apparently,  with  great  regularity.  We  breakfasted  at  nine, 
dined  about  four,  drank  tea  at  seven,  and  went  to  bed  at  ten  ;  that  is, 
we  went  to  our  rooms,  where  we  were  furnished  with  everything  we 
wanted,  and  where  Mrs.  Madison  sent  us  a  nice  supper  every  night 
and  a  nice  luncheon  every  forenoon.  From  ten  o'clock  in  the  morn 
ing  till  three  we  rode,  walked,  or  remained  in  our  rooms,  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Madison  being  then  occupied.  The  table  is  very  ample  and  ele 
gant,  and  somewhat  luxurious ;  it  is  evidently  a  serious  item  in  the 
account  of  Mr.  M.'s  happiness,  and  it  seems  to  be  his  habit  to  pass 
about  an  hour,  after  the  cloth  is  removed,  with  a  variety  of  wines  of 
no  mean  quality. 

On  politics  he  is  a  little  reserved,  as  he  seems  determined  not  to  be 
again  involved  in  them  ;  but  about  everything  else  he  talked  with 
great  freedom,  and  told  an  interminable  series  of  capital  stories,  most 
of  which  have  some  historical  value.  His  language,  though  not  very 
rich  or  picturesque,  was  chosen  with  much  skill,  and  combined  into 
very  elegant  and  finished  sentences  ;  and  both  Mr.  Webster  and  my 
self  were  struck  with  a  degree  of  good-sense  in  his  conversation  which 
we  had  not  anticipated  from  his  school  of  politics  and  course  of  life. 
We  passed  '  our  time,  therefore,  very  pleasantly,  and  feel  indebted  to 
him  for  a  hospitality  which  becomes  one  who  has  been  at  the  head  of 
the  nation. 

On  Sunday  forenoon  we  took  a  ride  of  a  dozen  miles  across  differ 
ent  plantations,  to  see  the  country  and  the  people.  Mr.  Madison's 
farm  —  as  he  calls  it  —  consists  of  about  three  thousand  acres,  with 
an  hundred  and  eighty  slaves,  and  is  among  the  best  managed  in  Vir 
ginia.  We  saw  also  one  or  two  others  that  looked  very  well,  but  in 
general  things  had  a  very  squalid  appearance.  We  stopped  at  the 
house  of  Mr.  Philip  Barbour,  one  of  the  most  active  lawyers  in  the 
Commonwealth,  lately  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Representatives,  and 
still  one  of  its  prominent  members.  The  house  is  of  brick,  and  new, 
large  enough,  and  not  inconvenient.  Probably  he  lives  with  a  sort 
of  luxury  which  is  chiefly  the  result  of  abundance,  and  is  not  very 
refined  ;  but  certainly  there  is  little  comfort  in  his  establishment,  and 


LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1824. 

a  good,  honest  New-Englander,  with  a  thousand  dollars  a  year, 
would  have  more  enjoyment  of  life  than  Mr.  Barbour  has  with  six  or 
seven 

Early  on  Tuesday  we  arrived  at  Monticello.  Everything  here  is 
on  a  larger  scale  than  at  Montpellier ;  the  house,  the  grounds,  and 
the  arrangements.  There  is,  too,  nothing  that  marks  the  residence 
of  an  Ex-King.  The  family  consists  of  Mr.  Jefferson  ;  Mrs.  Ran 
dolph,  his  daughter,  about  fifty-two  years  old  ;  Mr.  Trist,  a  young 
Louisianian,  who  has  married  her  fourth  daughter  ;  Miss  Ellen  ;  two 
other  daughters,  of  eighteen  and  twenty  ;  Mrs.  Trist ;  four  sons  under 
sixteen  ;  Mr.  Harrison,  a  young  lawyer  of  Harrisburg,  who  lately 
studied  at  Cambridge  ;  Mr.  Long,*  just  from  Cambridge,  England, 
apparently  an  excellent  scholar,  and  now  a  professor  in  the  University 
at  Charlottesville  ;  Mr.  Webster  ;  and  ourselves 

Yesterday  we  formed  a  party,  and,  with  Mr.  Jefferson  at  our  head, 
went  to  the  University.t  It  is  a  very  fine  establishment,  consisting 
of  ten  houses  for  professors,  four  eating-houses,  a  rotunda  on  the 
model  of  the  Parthenon,  with  a  magnificent  room  for  a  library,  and 
four  fine  lecture-rooms,  with  one  hundred  and  eight  apartments 
for  students  ;  the  whole  situated  in  the  midst  of  two  hundred  and 
fifty  acres  of  land,  high,  healthy,  and  with  noble  prospects  all  around 
it.  It  has  cost  two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars,  and  the 
thorough  finish  of  every  part  of  it,  and  the  beautiful  architecture 
of  the  whole,  show,  I  think,  that  it  has  not  cost  too  much.  Each 
professor  receives  his  house,  which  in  Charlottesville  —  the  neighbor 
ing  village  —  would  rent  for  $600,  a  salary  of  $1,500,  and  a  fee  of 
$  20  from  every  student  who  attends  his  instructions,  which  are  to  be 
lectures,  three  times  a  week.  Of  the  details  of  the  system  I  shall 
discourse  much  when  I  see  you.  It  is  more  practical  than  I  feared, 
but  not  so  practical  that  I  feel  satisfied  of  its  success.  It  is,  however, 
an  experiment  worth  trying,  to  which  I  earnestly  desire  the  happiest 
results  ;  and  they  have,  to  begin  it,  a  mass  of  buildings  more  beauti 
ful  than  anything  architectural  in  New  England,  and  more  appro 
priate  to  an  university  than  can  be  found,  perhaps,  in  the  world. 

Mr.  Jefferson  is  entirely  absorbed  in  it,  and  its  success  would  make 
a  beau  finale  indeed  to  his  life.  He  is  now  eighty-two  years  old, 
very  little  altered  from  what  he  was  ten  years  ago,  very  active,  lively, 
and  happy,  riding  from  ten  to  fifteen  miles  every  day,  and  talking 

*  Mr.  George  Long,  since  well  known  by  his  various  contributions  to  classi 
cal  scholarship, 
t  See  ante,  p.  303. 


M.  33.]  WASHINGTON.  349 

without  the  least  restraint,  very  pleasantly,  upon  all  subjects.  In 
politics,  his  interest  seems  nearly  gone.  He  takes  no  newspaper  but 
the  Richmond  Enquirer,  and  reads  that  reluctantly ;  but  on  all 
matters  of  literature,  philosophy,  and  general  interest,  he  is  prompt 
and  even  eager.  He  reads  much  Greek  and  Saxon.  I  saw  his  Greek 
Lexicon,  printed  in  1817  ;  it  was  much  worn  with  use,  and  contained 

many  curious  notes 

Mr.  Jefferson  seems  to  enjoy  life  highly,  and  very  rationally  ;  but 
he  said  well  of  himself  the  other  evening,  "  When  I  can  neither  read 
nor  ride,  I  shall  desire  very  much  to  make  my  bow."  I  think  he 

bids  fair  to  enjoy  both,  yet  nine  or  ten  years Write  to  us, 

my  dear  William,  as  soon  as  you  can,  and  very  often,  and  we  will  do 
all  we  can  to  send  you  speedy  and  pleasant  answers. 

Yours  always, 

GEO.  TICKNOB. 

To  WM.  H.  PRESCOTT. 

BALTIMORE,  January  16,  1825. 

We  received  your  long  and  very  entertaining  letter,  my  dear  Wil 
liam,  above  a  week  ago,  at  Washington I  should  have  an 
swered  it  at  once,  but  we  were  then  too  busy  to  do  what  we  would, 
and  I  was  obliged  to  postpone  writing.  We  arrived  here  last  night. 

The  first  time  we  were  in  Washington  we  passed  a  little  less 
than  a  fortnight ;  the  last  time,  between  three  and  four  weeks.  It  is 
altogether  a  very  curious  residence ;  very  different  from  anything  I 
have  seen  in  any  part  of  the  world.  The  regular  inhabitants  of  the 
city,  from  the  President  downwards,  lead  a  hard  and  troublesome 
life.  It  is  their  business  to  entertain  strangers,  and  they  do  it,  each 
one  according  to  his  means,  but  all  in  a  very  laborious  way 

The  President  gives  a  dinner,  once  a  week,  to  thirty  or  forty  peo 
ple —  no  ladies  present  —  in  a  vast,  cold  hall.  He  invited  me  to  one, 
but  I  did  not  go.  I  was,  however,  at  a  very  pleasant  dinner  of  only 
a  dozen,  that  he  gave  to  Lafayette,  when  the  old  gentleman  made 
himself  very  agreeable  ;  but  this  was  quite  out  of  the  common  course. 
....  Mr.  Adams  *  gives  a  great  dinner  once  a  week,  and  Mrs.  Adams 
a  great  ball  once  a  fortnight ;  it  keeps  her  ill  half  the  time,  but  she 
is  a  woman  of  great  spirit,  and  carries  it  through  with  a  high  hand. 
....  Calhoun's,  however,  was  the  pleasantest  of  the  ministerial 
dinners,  because  he  invited  ladies,  and  is  the  most  agreeable  person  in 
conversation  at  Washington,  —  I  mean  of  the  Cabinet,  —  and  Mrs. 

*  Then  Secretary  of  State. 


350  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1823. 

Calhoun  is  a  very  good  little  woman,  who  sometimes  gives  a  pleasant 

ball The  Russian  Minister  is  a  strange,  retired  fanatic,  in 

feeble  health,  who  gives  splendid  dinners  once  a  week.  Addington, 
the  British  Charge,  is  a  very  acute,  pleasant,  well-informed  man  of 
letters,  who  gives  very  agreeable  little  dinners  en  garpon,  twice  a  week, 
The  Baron  de  Mareuil  *  is  a  truly  elegant  gentleman,  in  the  largest 
sense  of  the  term,  and  his  wife  is  a  very  sweet  and  beautiful  woman, 
with  winning  manners.  They  are  now  in  severe  mourning  for  the 
king,  and  see  no  company  ;  but  we  went  there  sometimes,  and  dined 
with  them  once  enfamille,  most  pleasantly.  These  are  the  chief  of 
the  permanent  resources  of  Washington,  for  society  and  agreeable 
intercourse 

The  truth  is,  that  at  Washington  society  is  the  business  of  life. 
....  People  have  nothing  but  one  another  to  amuse  themselves 
with  ;  and  as  it  is  thus  obviously  for  every  man's  interest  to  be  agree 
able,  you  may  be  sure  very  few  fail.  For  myself,  I  can  truly  say  I 
have  seldom  been  more  amused,  interested,  and  excited  during  my 
life,  than  in  the  last  three  or  four  weeks.  I  found  out  how  things 
were  going,  the  first  time  we  were  there,  and  I  was  determined  to 
make  my  arrangements  so  as  to  enjoy  them  myself,  and  especially  to 
give  A.  a  chance  to  see  the  great  men  of  the  time,  and  enjoy  their 
conversation.  Every  morning  we  went  to  return  visits ;  .  .  .  .  then 
to  the  House  or  Senate,  if  there  were  any  debate.  At  four  o'clock, 
Mr.  Webster  and  Wallenstein  came  to  dinner,  —  if  we  dined  at  home, 
—  so  that  we  were  sure  of  delightful  society.  To  these,  I  often 
added  one  or  two  others,  and  thus  had  at  different  times,  entirely 
without  ceremony,  Mr.  Poinsett,t  Mr.  Clay,  Mr.  Tazewell,J  Mr. 
Cheves,§  Mr.  King,  General  Bernard,  the  Edward  Livingstons,  Gen 
eral  Lafayette,  etc.  These  dinners  were  as  pleasant  as  anything  of 
the  sort  could  well  be,  for  Mr.  Webster  was  generally  very  animated, 
and  there  was  no  want  of  excitement  among  the  rest  of  them. 

We  often  went  to  a  party  in  the  evening,  which  was  almost  uni 
formly  a  dance,  and  after  that  was  over  came  home  to  a  little 
supper,  or  went  to  one  elsewhere,  so  that,  from  twelve  at  noon  till 
midnight,  we  were  constantly  in  society  as  agreeable  and  exciting  as 

*  French  Minister. 

t  Joel  R.  Poinsett  of  South  Carolina,  our  Minister  to  Mexico  in  1825,  and 
Secretary  of  War  under  President  Van  Buren. 

t  Littleton  Waller  Tazewell,  a  distinguished  lawyer  of  Virginia,  and  member 
of  the  United  States  Senate. 

§  Langdon  Cheves  of  South  Carolina  had  been  Speaker  of  the  House  of 
Representatives  in  1815. 


M.  33.]  GENERAL  HARPER. 


any  in  the  country.  Our  next  neighbors  were  the  Edward  Living 
stons,  between  whose  parlor  and  ours  we  soon  removed  all  obstruc 
tions  ;  and  under  the  same  roof,  Colonel  Hayne  *  and  his  wife,  Mr. 
Cheves,  Mr.  Archer,  Colonel  Hamilton,  General  Mercer,  Mr.  King,  t 
and  so  on.  Two  or  three  times  a  week,  therefore,  we  could  make  an 

agreeable  supper-party  without  going  out  of  the  house The 

only  objection  to  society  at  Washington  is,  that  there  is  too  much 
of  it. 

Here,  however,  things  are  entirely  different.     It  is,  at  this  moment, 

a  city  of  mourning The  first  moment  after  our  arrival  we  heard 

of  General  Harper's  death,  and  the  tokens  of  it  have  been  before  our 
eyes  ever  since.  I  saw  him  several  times  last  November,  and  spent 
an  evening  at  his  house.  He  was  then  in  remarkable  health,  not  full 
and  plethoric,  as  he  used  to  be  ten  years  ago,  but  with  a  very  decided 
appearance  of  clear  and  settled  health.  His  conversation  was  un 
commonly  rich  and  powerful ;  not  very  animated,  but  very  frank, 
and  occasionally  with  great  choice  and  happiness  of  expression  and 
illustration.  The  disease  of  which  he  died,  an  ossification  of  the 
great  vessels  of  the  heart,  is  one  of  those  deep  and  obscure  complaints 

for  which  the  art  of  man  has  found  no  remedy On  Thursday 

he  argued  a  very  important  cause,  which  has  been  in  the  courts  these 
seventeen  years,  and  Mr.  Wirt  says  it  was  one  of  the  ablest  argu 
ments  he  ever  heard 

This  morning  he  was  buried,  as   Major-General  of  the  Maryland 

militia I  have  seen  a  marshal  of  France,  and  a  prince  of  the 

Roman  Empire,  buried  with  less  dignity  and  grandeur,  and  with  a 
much  less  moving  and  solemn  effect 

When  we  shall  be  at  home,  I  do  not  pretend  very  distinctly  to 

foresee,  but  before  long Addio,  caro. 

GEO.  TICKNOR. 

In  the  course  of  this  visit  in  "Washington,  Mr.  Ticknor  was 
asked  by  General  Lafayette  to  interest  himself  in  discovering 
and  assisting  two  German  refugees,  scholarly  men,  who  had 
fled,  for  political  reasons,  first  to  Switzerland,  and  thence  to  the 
United  States,  and  who  had  written  to  him  asking  aid  in  find 
ing  employment.  Their  names  were  Beck  and  Follen,  and  it 

*  Robert  Y.  Hayne  of  South  Carolina,  born  1791 ;  best  known  for  his  debate 
with  Mr.  Webster  in  the  United  States  Senate,  in  1830. 

t  Rufus  King,  our  Minister  to  Great  Britain  in  1796;  died  in  1827  at  the 
age  of  seventy-two. 


352  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1825. 

was  supposed  they  might  be  found  or  heard  of  in  Philadelphia. 
On  his  way  home,  therefore,  Mr.  Ticknor  took  great  pains  to 
gain  some  knowledge  of  them  in  Philadelphia,  but  failed  up  to 
the  last  day  of  his  stay  there.  On  that  day,  Mr.  John  Vaughan  * 
dined  with  him  at  the  hotel,  and,  being  interested  in  the  search, 
suggested,  as  a  last  resource,  that  a  Swiss  shopkeeper  in  the 
neighborhood  might  possibly  furnish  some  information.  This 
chance  was  tried  successfully.  Two  modest  young  men  were 
found,  just  preparing,  in  despair  of  better  things,  to  go  as  tillers 
of  the  soil  into  the  interior  of  Pennsylvania. 

Mr.  Ticknor  said  to  them,  "You  must  furnish  me  with  a 
written  statement  of  your  history  and  acquirements."  This 
they  were  quite  willing  to  do,  but  confessed  their  inability  to 
write  either  in  English  or  in  French  with  sufficient  ease  and 
accuracy.  A  proposal  that  they  should  use  Latin  made  their 
faces  brighten,  and  the  next  day  the  two  documents  were 
brought  to  Mr.  Ticknor,  written  in  correct  and  fluent  Latin. 
Dr.  Beck  was  soon  —  through  Mr.  Ticknor's  means  —  estab 
lished  at  Mr.  Cogswell's  school  in  Northampton,  and  afterwards 
became  Professor  of  Latin  at  Harvard  College,  where  he  passed 
the  rest  of  his  life. 

Dr.  Follen  was  made  teacher  of  German  in  Mr.  Ticknor's 
department,  at  the  same  College,  in  1825,  and  in  1830  was  made 
Professor  of  German  Language  and  Literature,  which  he  held 
for  five  years.  In  1826  Mr.  Ticknor  writes  to  Mr.  Daveis, 
"  Our  German  teacher,  Dr.  Follen,  was  formerly  Professor  of 
Civil  Law  at  Basel,  a  young  man  who  left  his  country  from 
political  troubles.  He  is  a  fine  fellow,  an  excellent  scholar,  and 
teaches  German  admirably.  He  will  lecture  on  the  Civil  Law, 

in  Boston,  in  a  few  weeks He  is  a  modest,  thorough, 

faithful  German  scholar,  who  will  do  good  among  us,  and  be 
worth  your  knowing."  The  career  of  these  two  men  was  such 
as  to  make  Mr.  Ticknor  look  back  with  pleasure  to  the  efforts 
he  made  in  their  behalf. 

*  Brother  of  Mr.  Benjamin  and  Mr.  William  Vaughan ;  see  ante,  p.  55. 


HARVARD  COLLEGE.  353 


CHAPTER    XVIII. 

Efforts  for  Reform  in  Harvard  College. 

THE  spirit  with  which  Mr.  Ticknor  entered  on  his  profes 
sorship  at  Harvard  College,  and  the  scheme  of  duties  he 
formed,  to  the  fulfilment  of  which  he  gave  himself  with  charac 
teristic  energy,  hopefulness,  and  ardor,  have  been  noticed  in  pre 
ceding  pages.  He  had  not  been  long  engaged  in  his  work  before 
he  found  himself  hampered  by  the  general  conditions  of  instruc 
tion  at  Cambridge,  and  his  success  in  his  own  department  mate 
rially  checked  by  the  deficiencies  of  the  system  then  in  force. 

Alike  in  respect  to  discipline  and  to  learning,  the  College  was 
not  in  a  satisfactory  state.  Many  of  the  officers  of  the  govern 
ment  and  of  instruction  were  aware  of  existing  defects,  and 
anxious  to  find  a  remedy  for  them ;  while  the  friends  of  the  Col 
lege,  in  the  community  at  large,  felt  the  necessity  of  vigorous 
measures  of  change  and  improvement.  Mr.  Ticknor's  quick  in 
telligence  soon  detected  the  sources  of  the  evils  by  which  the 
usefulness  of  the  College  was  diminished,  and  his  generous  zeal 
for  the  best  culture  urged  him  to  exert  his  full  powers  for  their 
removal.  He  took  up  the  question  of  reform  without  hesitation, 
and  for  several  years  he  was  one  of  the  chief  leaders  in  the  en 
deavor  to  secure  the  changes  required,  to  make  the-  College  an 
institution  for  the  highest  education  attainable  with  such  means 
and  resources  as  it  had  at  command.  The  attempt  was  only  in 
part  successful.  The  community  was  not  prepared  for  some  of 
the  strong  changes  which  were  proposed ;  but  the  impulse  was 
given,  which,  in  the  fifty  years  that  have  followed,  has  been  effi 
cient  in  raising  the  College  to  its  present  position  as  a  University, 
fully  equipped  and  admirably  served,  and  no  one  did  more  to 
create  it  than  Mr.  Ticknor. 


354  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1825. 

His  interest  in  the  improvement  of  education  at  Cambridge 
was  so  great,  and  he  took  so  large  a  part  in  the  attempt  to  ren 
der  the  College  effective  for  the  promotion  of  the  highest  culture, 
that  any  account  of  his  life  from  1819  to  1830  must  include  a 
narrative  of  his  exertions  for  that  end. 

In  a  letter  to  Mr.  Haven,  written  in  1825,  he  gives  a  sketch 
of  the  condition  of  the  College,  and  of  the  efforts  to  improve  it, 
beginning  in  1821.* 

To  N.  A.  HAVEN. 

October  26,  1825. 

I  take  my  earliest  leisure  to  give  you  the  account  you  desire  to 
have,  of  the  origin  and  management  of  the  measures  for  change  at 
Cambridge 

When  I  came  home  from  Europe  [1819],  not  Laving  been  educated 
at  Cambridge,  and  having  always  looked  upon  it  with  great  venera 
tion,  I  had  no  misgivings  about  the  wisdom  of  the  organization  and 
management  of  the  College  there.  I  went  about  my  work,  therefore, 
with  great  alacrity  and  confidence  ;  not,  indeed,  according  to  a  plan  I 
proposed  in  writing,  ....  but  according  to  the  established  order  of 
things,  which  I  was  urged  to  adopt  as  my  own,  and  which  I  did  adopt 

*  Mr.  Haven's  forebodings  about  the  College  were  often  expressed  to  Mr. 
Ticknor.  On  the  15th  of  September,  1821,  he  wrote  :  "  I  have  frequently  had 
occasion  to  express  an  opinion,  which  I  have  formed  after  some  inquiry,  — and, 
I  need  not  add,  with  great  reluctance,  —  that  habits  of  expense  and  of  dissipated 
pleasures  prevail  amongst  the  young  men  at  Cambridge,  in  a  greater  degree  than 

at  any  former  period  within  my  knowledge The  opinion  was  formed  and 

communicated  to  a  friend  more  than  three  years  aga  I  made  inquiries  of  young 
men  who  were  then  or  who  had  recently  been  connected  with  the  College,  and 
my  opinion  was  formed  upon  facts  which  they  communicated.  I  may  add,  that 
the  friend  with  whom  I  conversed  did  not  at  that  time  agree  with  me  in  opinion  ; 
that  I  had  no  further  conversation  with  him  upon  the  subject  until  last  week, 
when  he  informed  me  that  his  own  inquiries  and  observation  had  convinced 
him  that  the  College  could  be  saved  from  utter  ruin  only  by  the  introduction 

of  a  severe  discipline No  one  who  knows  me  will  suspect  me  of  any 

feelings  unfriendly  to  the  College.  On  the  contrary,  I  cannot  well  describe  how 
strongly  all  my  feelings  and  hopes  and  recollections  are  connected  with  it.  It 
is  precisely  because  they  are  so  connected  with  it,  that  I  desire  a  reformation  to 
be  effected.  I  might  almost  say  that  all  our  hopes  of  sound  learning  and  of 

uncorrupted  Christianity  depend  upon  the  prosperity  of  that  institution 

But  the  College  has  watchful  enemies,  and  nothing  can  save  her  from  their  grasp 
but  a  spotless  reputation." 


JR.  34.]  HARVARD  COLLEGE.  355 

very  cheerfully.  In  about  a  year  and  a  half,  I  began  to  find  out  that 
there  was  much  idleness  and  dissipation  in  College,  of  which  the  resi 
dent  teachers  were  ignorant,  and  I  began  to  feel  that  $  2,(XK)  per  an 
num  were  spent  nominally  to  teach  the  French  and  Spanish  languages 
and  literatures,  when  in  fact  no  such  thing  was  done. 

I  went  to  the  President,  therefore,  as  the  head  5f  the  College,  and 
explained  my  difficulties  to  him,  in  the  spring  of  1821.  In  June  of 
that  year  I  had  several  formal  conversations  with  him.  They  ended 
in  nothing.  I  talked,  also,  with  Mr.  Norton,  Mr.  Frisbie,  and  Dr. 
Ware,*  all  of  whom  thought  great  changes  necessary,  and  the  two 
first  thought  the  Corporation  should  be  applied  to,  while  the  latter, 
Dr.  Ware,  thought  public  opinion  should  be  brought  to  act  on  the 
immediate  government,  and  compel  them  to  a  more  efficient  adminis 
tration  of  the  College. 

I  then  went  to  Mr.  Fresco tt.t  He  was  so  far  moved  with  the  state 
ments  I  made  to  him —  in  July,  1821  —  that  he  desired  me  to  reduce 
them  to  writing.  I  wrote  him  a  letter  of  nearly  twenty  pages,  much 
of  which  is  in  my  printed  "Remarks."  It  is  dated  July  31,  1821, 
and  at  his  request  I  made  copies  of  it,  and  gave  one  to  the  President, 
one  to  Mr.  Lowell,  and  one  to  Judge  Davis,  etc.  I  showed  it,  also, 
to  Mr.  Norton,  Mr.  Frisbie,  and  Dr.  Ware,  who  expressed  themselves 
strongly  satisfied  ;  the  first,  Mr.  Norton,  in  a  long  letter,  and  the  two 
last  verbally.  Mr.  Farrar  thought  changes  unnecessary. 

The  Corporation,  in  consequence  of  this  letter,  issued  a  circular  to 
all  the  teachers,  dated  September  12,  1821,  containing  seven  pages  of 
all  possible  questions,  to  which  was  afterwards  added  a  request  to 
each  teacher  to  suggest  anything  he  might  desire  to  have  done,  or 
changed  at  College,  even  if  not  suggested  by  the  questions  them 
selves.  Most  of  the  teachers  answered  in  the  course  of  the  autumn. 
My  answers  are  dated  October  23,  and  fill  thirty  pages.  Mr.  Fris- 
bie's  were  nearly  as  long,  and  are  the  only  memorial  he  ever  sent  to 
the  Corporation.  Mr.  Norton's  and  Mr.  Farrar's  were  longer,  and 
so  on. 

*  All  of  them  professors  in  the  College. 

t  Hon.  William  Prescott,  then  a  member  of  the  Corporation.  The  manage 
ment  of  Harvard  College  was  then,  as  now,  in  the  hands  of  three  separate 
bodies,  t\iz  first  of  these  being  the  Faculty,  or  immediate  government,  having 
the  entire  discipline  of  the  students  in  its  hands  ;  the  second  being  the  Corpo 
ration,  having  the  management  of  the  funds  and  revenues  of  the  College,  and  the 
appointment  of  instructors,  with  other  duties  exercised  under  the  supervision  of 
the  third  body,  the  Overseers,  representing  the  interests  of  the  graduates  and 
of  the  public  at  large. 


356  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1825. 

The  committee  to  consider  these  answers  —  amounting  to  nearly 
three  hundred  pages  —  was  composed  of  Dr.  Porter,  Mr.  Prescott,  and 
Mr.  Lowell,  all  working  men.  And  they  did  work  faithfully.  Mr. 
Prescott,  in  particular,  made  an  abstract  of  the  opinions  of  each 
respondent,  arranged  under  the  appropriate  heads  of  the  changes  pro 
posed,  and  found  a* large  majority  against  any  change  of  importance. 
The  Corporation  were  unwilling  to  proceed,  in  this  state  of  things,  to 
make  changes.  Mr.  Norton  then  proposed  to  me  to  print  my  answers, 
his,  and  Mr.  Frisbie's,  and  send  a  copy  to  each  of  the  Overseers,  and 
try  to  stir  them  up  to  action  ;  but  I  was  not  willing  to  proceed  to 
such  extremities,  and  declined  doing  it.  Matters  therefore  rested 
quietly  till  May,  1823,  that  is,  a  year  and  a  half  more,  when  there 
was  a  rebellion,  and  forty  students  were  sent  off  together. 

Mr.  Norton  and  Dr.  Ware  then  brought  up  the  whole  subject  of 
the  College,  for  discussion  in  a  club  for  religious  purposes  to  which 

we  belonged I  was  sorry  for  it,  and  so  expressed  myself.  But 

it  was  discussed  three  evenings,  and  a  good  deal  of  excitement  pro 
duced  by  it.  On  the  fourth  evening  there  was  a  very  thin  meeting 

at  Dr.  Ware's,  owing  to  a  rain Some  one  proposed  to  remove 

the  discussion  to  another  body  of  persons,  who  should  be  selected  for 
the  purpose,  and  I  agreed  to  it,  both  because  it  had  been  discussed 
enough  where  it  then  was,  and  because  some  of  the  members  of  the 
club  were  not,  in  my  estimation,  the  right  persons  to  discuss  it  at  all. 
It  was  agreed  the  meeting  should  be  small,  and  Mr.  R.  Sullivan  and 

myself  were  desired  to  call  it Nine  of  us  therefore  assembled 

at  my  house  July  23,  1823.* 

For  the  consideration  of  these  gentlemen  Mr.  Ticknor  had 
drawn  up  a  paper,  the  general  object  and  character  of  which  are 
shown  in  the  following  extracts  :  — 

It  is,  I  think,  an  unfortunate  circumstance,  that  all  our  colleges 
have  been  so  long  considered  merely  places  for  obtaining  a  degree  of 
Bachelor  of  Arts,  to  serve  as  a  means  and  certificate  whereon  to  build 
the  future  plans  and  purposes  of  life.  Such  a  state  of  things  was, 
indeed,  unavoidable  at  the  earlier  period  of  our  College,  when  there 

*  Rev.  Charles  Lowell,  Judge  Story,  and  Messrs.  R.  Sullivan  and  John  Pick 
ering,  Overseers  ;  Dr.  James  Jackson  and  Mr.  Ticknor,  present  officers  ; 
Messrs.  G.  B.  Emerson  and  J.  G.  Palfrey,  former  officers ;  and  Mr.  W.  Sulli 
van,  former  Overseer.  Mr.  Prescott  and  Mr.  Otis  were  kept  away  by  having 
to  attend  a  meeting  of  the  Corporation  on  the  same  day. 


M.  34.]  HARVARD  COLLEGE.  357 

was  only  a  President,  who  sometimes  lived  permanently  in  Boston, 
and  a  few  tutors,  who  kept  a  school  in  Newton  ;  for  the  number 
of  scholars  was  so  small  that  it  was  possible  to  teach  only  by  classes, 
and  each  student,  the  number  being  also  small,  could  pass  through  the 
hands  of  every  one  of  them,  and  receive  from  every  one  all  the  in 
struction  he  could  give.  But  now  the  state  of  the  case  is  reversed. 
There  are  twenty  or  more  teachers,  and  three  hundred  students,  arid 
yet  the  division  into  classes  remains  exactly  the  same,  and  every  stu 
dent  is  obliged  to  pass  through  the  hands  of  nearly  or  quite  every 
instructor.  Of  course,  the  recitations  become  mere  examinations,  and 
it  cannot  be  attempted  to  give  more  than  the  most  superficial  view  of 
very  important  subjects,  even  to  those  who  would  gladly  investigate 
them,  thoroughly,  because  they  must  keep  with  the  class  to  which 
they  are  bound,  and  hurry  on  from  a  teacher  and  a  subject  to  which 
they  have,  perhaps,  important  reasons  for  being  attached,  to  another 
teacher  and  another  subject,  wherein  their  present  dispositions  and 
final  pursuits  in  life  make  it  impossible  for  them  to  feel  any  interest. 
But  at  the  same  time  that  we  at  once  perceive  this  system  ....  has 
been  carried  too  far,  ....  we  must  still  feel  that  it  has  in  some 
respects  its  peculiar  advantages.  The  majority  of  the  young  men  who 
come  to  Cambridge  should  not  be  left  entirely  to  themselves  to  choose 
what  they  will  study,  because  they  are  not  competent  to  judge  what 
will  be  most  important  for  them  ;  and  yet  no  parent  would  wish  to 
have  his  child  pursue  branches  of  knowledge  which  he  is  sure  can 
never  be  of  use  to  him  in  future  life. 

A  beneficial  compromise  can,  however,  as  it  seems  to  me,  be  effected 
between  the  old  system  still  in  operation  and  the  most  liberal  con 
cessions  that  would  be  demanded  by  one  of  the  merely  free  and  philo 
sophical  universities  of  Europe. 

Mr.  Ticknor  went  on  to  describe  in  explicit  terms  the  actual 
condition  of  the  College  in  all  matters. of  discipline,  morals,  and 
instruction,  and  closes  this  part  of  the  subject  with  saying,  — 

Now  if  this  be  the  condition  of  the  College,  which  I  do  not  doubt, 
or  if  anything  like  it  exist  there,  which  nobody  will  deny,  it  is  per 
fectly  apparent  that  a  great  and  thorough  change  must  take  place  in 
its  discipline  and  instruction  ;  not  to  bring  it  up  to  the  increasing 
demands  of  the  community,  but  to  make  it  fulfil  the  purposes  of  a 
respectable  high  school,  to  which  young  men  may  be  safely  sent  to  be 
prepared  for  the  study  of  a  profession. 


358  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1825. 

His  plan  of  reform  includes  a  revision  of  the  laws ;  their  ad 
ministration  by  a  tribunal  of  three,  with  full  powers  of  dismis 
sion,  etc. ;  stricter  examination,  both  annual  and  for  admission  ; 
annual  increase  of  studies  during  the  College  course ;  a  change 
in  the  character  of  the  recitations,  and  restriction  of  personal 
expenses  of  the  students. 

Whenever  the  tribunal  of  three  are  satisfied  that  a  young  man  does 
not  fulfil  the  purposes  for  which  he  caine  to  College,  they  should  be 
required  instantly  to  dismiss  him,  for  his  own  sake,  for  the  sake  of 
his  friends,  and  for  the  sake  of  the  College,  since  from  that  moment 
he  becomes  a  nuisance  ;  for,  if  it  be  mere  dulness,  he  is  out  of  his 
place  and  lowers  the  standard  of  merit,  and  if  it  be  idleness,  folly,  or 

vice,  he  is  continually  spreading  mischief  around  him The 

longest  vacation  should  happen  in  the  hot  season,  when  insubordina 
tion  and  misconduct  are  now  most  frequent,  partly  from  the  indolence 
produced  by  the  season.  There  is  a  reason  against  this,  I  know, —  the 
poverty  of  many  students,  who  keep  school  for  a  part  of  their  sub 
sistence 

On  this  point  he  gives  facts  and  statistics  to  prove  this  con 
cession  and  arrangement  to  be  unnecessary,  and  continues  :  — 

And  it  would  be  difficult  to  prove  that  it  is  always  even  poverty 
that  is  encouraged,  for  of  sixteen  beneficiaries  in  the  Senior  Class, 
only  nine  were  last  winter  so  poor  as  to  be  compelled  to  resort  to 
school-keeping ;  so  that,  on  all  accounts,  I  think  it  is  apparent  the 
College  can  fulfil  all  its  duties  to  the  poorer  portion  of  the  com 
munity,  without  resorting  to  the  winter  vacation 

For  myself,  I  will  gladly  perform  all  the  duties  that  fall  to  my 
office  as  Smith  Professor,  and  give  besides  a  full  twelfth  of  all  the 
additional  common  instruction  at  College,  for  the  three  next  years, 
provided  this  reform  may  take  place,  and  such  branches  be  assigned 
to  me  as  I  can  teach  with  profit  to  the  school.  I  am  persuaded 
every  other  teacher  would  be  equally  willing  to  pledge  himself  to 
extra  labors  in  such  a  cause 

But  one  thing  is  certain.  A  change  must  take  place.  The  disci 
pline  of  College  must  be  made  more  exact,  and  the  instruction  more 
thorough.  All  now  is  too  much  in  the  nature  of  a  show,  and 

abounds  too  much  in  false  pretences It  is  seen  that  we  are 

neither  an  University  —  which  we  call  ourselves — nor  a  respectable 


•M.  34.]  HARVARD  COLLEGE.  359 

high  school,  —  which  we  ought  to  be,  —  and  that  with  "Christo  et 
Ecclesise "  for  our  motto,  the  morals  of  great  numbers  of  the  young 
men  who  come  to  us  are  corrupted.  We  must  therefore  change,  or 
public  confidence,  which  is  already  hesitating,  will  entirely  desert 
us.  If  we  can  ever  have  an  university  at  Cambridge  which  shall 
lead  the  intellectual  character  of  the  country,  it  can  be,  I  apprehend, 
only  when  the  present  College  shall  have  been  settled  into  a  thorough 
and  well-disciplined  high  school,  where  the  young  men  of  the  coun 
try  shall  be  carefully  prepared  to  begin  their  professional  studies,  and 
where  in  Medicine,  Law,  and  Theology,  sufficient  inducements  shall 
have  been  collected  around  and  within  the  College  ....  to  keep 
graduates  there  two  years  longer,  at  least,  and  probably  three.  .... 

We  have  now  learnt  that  as  many  years  are  passed  in  our  schools, 
and  colleges,  and  professional  preparation,  as  are  passed  in  the  same 
way,  and  for  the  same  purpose,  in  the  best  schools  in  Europe,  while 
it  is  perfectly  apparent  that  nothing  like  the  same  results  are  ob 
tained  ;  so  that  we  have  only  to  choose  whether  the  reproach  shall 
rest  on  the  talents  of  our  young  men,  or  on  the  instruction  and  disci 
pline  of  our  institutions  for  teaching  them.  Now,  as  there  can  be  no 
doubt  which  of  the  two  is  in  fault,  our  colleges,  Constituting  as  they 
do  the  most  important  portion  of  our  means  of  teaching,  must  come 
in  for  their  full  share  of  the  blame. '  There  may  be  defects,  and  there 
are  defects,  I  know,  in  the  previous  preparation  of  the  young  men, 
but  the  defects  at  college  are  greater  and  graver. 

Such,  were  the  condition  and  the  needs  of  the  College,  in  the 
view  of  Mr.  Ticknor.  His  opinions  had  weight,  and  were  care 
fully  considered  by  the  gentlemen  before  whom  he  laid  them. 
He  continues  his  narrative  to  Mr.  Haven  as  follows  :  — 

A  list  of  above  twenty  questions  was  prepared  by  the  contributions 
of  all  present,  each  one  proposing  any  point  he  wished  to  have 
examined.  The  discussions  began  at  9  A.  M.  and  were  continued 
till  6  P.  M.,  through  dinner  and  all,  without  intermission.  About 
a  dozen  points  were  examined,  and  on  all  it  was  unanimously 
agreed,  something  ought  to  be  done.  We  determined,  therefore,  to 
have  a  committee  of  the  Overseers  appointed,  —  if  we  could  compass 
it,  —  with  full  powers  to  examine  into  the  whole  condition  of  the 
College.  This  we  knew  would  be  agreeable  to  Mr.  Prescott  and  Mr. 
Otis,  who  thought  the  work  could  not  be  carried  on  without  the 
intervention  of  a  larger  body  than  the  Corporation,  and  a  stronger 


360  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1825. 

action  of  public  opinion  than  such  a  body  could  produce.  It  was, 
also,  what  was  foreseen  as  probable  at  the  meeting  at  Dr.  Ware's,  and 
what  Mr.  Norton  had  long  thought  desirable.  The  committee,  there 
fore,  was  appointed  at  the  regular  meeting  of  the  Overseers,  held  the 

next  day,  July  24,   1823 A  committee  of  the  Corporation, 

consisting  of  the  President,  Mr.  Prescott,  and  Mr.  Otis,  was  appointed, 
July  25,  to  confer  with  this  committee  of  the  Overseers,  as  had  been 

requested  by  the  vote  of  the   Overseers They  had  many 

meetings,  some  which  lasted  a  whole  day.  If  ever  a  subject  was 
thoroughly  discussed,  they  discussed  this  one  thoroughly.  When 
Judge  Story  had  drawn  up  his  report,  he  sent  it  to  the  President, 
with  whom  it  remained  above  two  months,  and  who  returned  it 
without  desiring  any  alteration,  or  suggesting  any  from  any  other 
person. 

This  report  was  discussed  June  1,  1824,  and  another  committee 
appointed  (J.  Lowell,  Chairman)  to  inquire,  and  report  further  de 
tails,  as  the  Overseers  were  evidently  not  sufficiently  informed  about 

the  state  of  the  College The  result  of  the  whole  was,  that  the 

resident  teachers  again  declared  themselves  against  all  but  very 
trifling  changes.  The  Overseers,  however,  after  a  very  long  discus 
sion,  passed  the  greater  changes  unanimously,  and  these  greater 
changes,  having  been  digested  into  the  shape  of  laws  by  the  Corpora 
tion,  are  now  the  basis  on  which  the  College  rests,  and  which  I 
undertook  to  explain  and  defend  in  my  review,  or  pamphlet.* .  .  . 
That  the  opinion  of  a  majority  of  the  resident  teachers  has  not  been 
followed,  is  true  ;  that  they  have  not  been  kindly  and  respectfully 
consulted  at  every  step,  in  making  up  the  final  result,  is  obviously  a 
mistake  ;  but  that  any  one,  except  the  teachers,  or  rather  a  part  of 
the  teachers,  at  Cambridge,  thinks  this  result  wrong  or  unwise,  I 
have  not  yet  heard.  The  general  opinion,  indeed,  has  seldom  been 
so  unanimous  on  any  important  point,  that  had  been  so  much  dis 
cussed,  and,  taking  the  whole  body  of  instructors,  —  resident  and 
non-resident,  —  there  is  a  majority  strongly  the  same  way. 

Mr.  Ticknor,  and  those  who  acted  with  him,  had  thus  far 
addressed  themselves  only  to  the  responsible  official  bodies 
having  charge  of  the  interests  of  the  College ;  but  when,  in  June, 
1825,  the  changes  they  desired  received  the  sanction  of  both  the 

*  ''Remarks  on  Changes  lately  proposed  or  adopted  in  Harvard  University." 
By  George  Ticknor,  Smith  Professor,  etc.  Boston,  1825.  8vo.  pp.  48. 


M.  34.]  HARVARD  COLLEGE.  361 

superior  boards,  it  was  thought  proper  that  they  should  be  ex 
plained  and  vindicated  to  the  public.  Mr.  Ticknor,  accordingly, 
at  the  request  of  Judge  Story,  Mr.  Webster,  and  Mr.  Prescott, 
wrote  an  article  on  the  subject  for  the  "  North  American  Re 
view."  It  was  already  in  type,  when  the  editor  of  that  journal 
—  although  he  had  invited  and  accepted  the  article  —  informed 
Mr.  Ticknor  that,  by  the  advice  of  friends,  he  had  decided  that 
it  would  be  inexpedient  fur  him  to  publish  it.  The  gentlemen 
who  had  originally  counselled  its  preparation,  and  had  them 
selves  revised  it  in  manuscript,  then  recommended  its  publication 
as  a  separate  pamphlet.  This  was  done  in  September,  1825,  and 
before  the  close  of  the  year  a  second  edition  was  called  for  and 
exhausted. 

This  pamphlet,  referred  to  in  the  preceding  letter,  was  de 
signed  to  explain  and  defend  the  changes  which  it  was  supposed 
were  to  be  carried  out  at  Harvard ;  changes  which  in  no  other 
way  affected  Mr.  Ticknor's  relations  to  the  College  than  as  they 
increased  his  labors.  After  describing  the  state  of  the  institu 
tion,  and  the  grounds  of  the  existing  dissatisfaction  with  it,  he 
entered  upon  the  discussion  of  a  question  relating  to  the  alleged 
legal  right  of  resident  teachers  to  become  members  of  the  Corpo 
ration  ;  a  claim  which,  in  the  manner  it  had  been  urged,  resulted 
in  a  demand  that  the  members  of  the  Corporation  should  be 
appointed  exclusively  from  among  such  resident  professors  and 
tutors.  This  was  an  old  controversy,  recently  revived.  Mr. 
Ticknor  availed  himself  of  the  ample  notes  from  which  Judge 
Story  had  made  an  argument  on  this  subject  before  the  Over 
seers,  together  with  suggestions  from  Mr.  Webster  and  Mr. 
Prescott,  in  order  to  pxit  on  record,  in  a  permanent  form,  the 
grounds  on  which  this  question,  as  a  matter  of  law,  had  been 
set  at  rest.*  He  then  considered  and  answered  the  same  claim, 
as  a  matter  of  expediency. 

An  historical  statement  follows,  of  the  steps  taken  to  bring 
about  important  changes  in  the  College,  beginning  with  what 

*  He  makes  acknowledgment  of  the  sources  from  which  he  drew  the  legal 
argument,  in  a  manuscript  note  on  the  margin  of  a  copy  of  the  pamphlet,  now 
remaining  in  his  library. 

VOL.  I.  16 


362  .   LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1825. 

was  attempted  in  1821,  and  coming  down  to  the  new  code  of 
laws  just  sanctioned  by  the  Corporation  and  Overseers  in  June, 
1825,  which  he  explained  and  vindicated.  The  whole  move 
ment  Mras  an  effort  to  carry  the  institution  through  a  state  of 
transition,  gradually  moulding  it  into  a  broader  and  freer  form. 
The  immediate  abolition  of  the  system  of  classes,  of  a  curric 
ulum  and  a  degree,  could  not  be  undertaken,  nor  could  the 
teaching  of  many  of  the  professors  be  emancipated  from  the 
special  spheres  imposed  by  the  donors  of  their  foundations. 
But  the  cardinal  features  of  the  new  plan  were  these :  the 
division  of  the  whole  institution  into  departments,  with  the 
right  of  a  limited  choice  of  studies ;  the  separation  of  the  mem 
bers  of  a  class  for  their  exercises,  according  to  their  proficiency, 
so  that  each  division  might  be  carried  forward  as  rapidly  as 
was  consistent  with  thoroughness,  every  man  having  a  right  to 
make  progress  according  to  his  industry  and  capacity ;  and  the 
opening  of  the  College  to  those  who  wished  to  pursue  special 
studies,  without  taking  a  degree.  Mr.  Ticknor  made  it  appar 
ent  that  these  changes  could  be  made  consistent  with  the 
retention  of  classes,  and  with  the  conferring  of  degrees  on  those 
who  might  desire  them.  He  made  it  equally  plain  that  the 
existing  pecuniary  means  of  the  College  were  sufficient  —  if 
rightly  used  —  to  put  these  innovations  to  a  fair  and  proper  test. 
Having  discussed  all  these  topics  with  great  fulness,  he  closed 
with  a  vigorous  passage  on  the  absolute  necessity  of  introducing 
greater  thoroughness  into  the  processes  of  teaching  :  — 

There  is  one  point  that  I  believe  must  be  made  a  sort  of  cynosure, 
when  beneficial  changes  are  undertaken,  both  at  Harvard  and  at  our 
other  colleges  ;  and  that  is,  the  principle  of  thorough  teaching.  On 
this  point,  it  is  desirable  to  be  perfectly  plain,  and  to  be  very  plainly 
understood.  It  is  a  small  matter  to  diminish  the  unreasonable 
amount  of  holidays,  or  to  give  the  students  more  and  longer  lessons, 
under  a  division  according  to  proficiency,  or  to  do  almost  anything 
else,  if  the  principle  of  teaching  is  still  to  be  overlooked.  For  the 
most  that  an  instructor  now  undertakes  in  our  colleges  is  to  ascertain, 
from  day  to  day,  whether  the  young  men  who  are  assembled  in  his 
presence  have  probably  studied  the  lesson  prescribed  to  them.  There 


M.  34.]  HARVARD  COLLEGE.  363 

his  duty  stops.  If  the  lesson  have  been  learnt,  it  is  well  ;  if  it  have 
not,  nothing  remains  but  punishment,  after  a  sufficient  number  of 
such  offences  shall  have  been  accumulated  to  demand  it  ;  and  then 
it  comes,  halting  after  the  delinquent,  he  hardly  knows  why.  The 
idea  of  a  thorough  commentary  on  the  lesson  ;  the  idea  of  making 
the  explanations  and  illustrations  of  the  teacher  of  as  much  conse 
quence  as  the  recitation  of  the  book,  or  even  more,  is  substantially 
unknown  in  this  country,  except  at  a  few  preparatory  schools. 

The  consequence  is,  that,  though  many  of  our  colleges  may  have 
a  valuable  apparatus  for  instruction,  though  they  may  be  very  good, 
quiet,  and  secluded  places  for  study,  and  though  many  of  the  young 
men  who  resort  thither  may  really  learn  not  a  little  of  what  is 
exacted  or  expected  from  them,  yet,  after  all,  not  one  of  our  colleges 
is  a  place  for  thorough  teaching  ;  and  not  one  of  the  better  class  of 
them  does  half  of  what  it  might  do,  by  bringing  the  minds  of  its 
instructors  to  act  directly  and  vigorously  on  the  minds  of  its  pupils, 
and  thus  to  encourage,  enable,  and  compel  them  to  learn  what  they 
ought  to  learn,  and  what  they  easily  might  learn. 

Consider,  only,  that  as  many  years  are  given  to  the  great  work 
of  education  here  as  are  given  in  Europe,  and  that  it  costs  more 
money  with  us  to  be  very  imperfectly  educated  than  it  does  to  enjoy 
the  great  advantages  of  some  of  the  best  institutions  and  universities 
on  the  Continent.  And  yet,  who  in  this  country,  by  means  here  offered 
him,  has  been  enabled  to  make  himself  a  good  Greek  scholar  ?  Who 
has  been  taught  thoroughly  to  read,  write,  and  speak  Latin  ?  Nay, 
who  has  been  taught  anything,  at  our  colleges,  with  the  thoroughness 
that  will  enable  him  to  go  safely  and  directly  onward  to  distinction 
in  the  department  he  has  thus  entered,  without  returning  to  lay  anew 
the  foundations  for  his  success  ?  It  is  a  shame  to  be  obliged  to  ask 
such  questions  ;  aiid  yet  there  is  but  one  answer  to  them,  and  those 
who  have  visited  and  examined  the  great  schools  of  Europe  have 
bitterly  felt,  there,  what  this  answer  is,  and  why  it  must  be  given. 

In  some  of  our  colleges  there  may  be  a  reason  for  this  state  of 
things.  Their  means  are  small,  their  apparatus  incomplete,  their  in 
structors  few.  They  do  what  they  can ;  but  they  cannot  do  much 
more  than  spread  before  their  students  a  small  part  of  the  means  for 
acquiring  knowledge,  examine  them  sufficiently  to  ascertain  their 
general  diligence,  and  encourage  them  to  exertion  by  such  rewards 
and  punishments  as  they  can  command.  And  in  doing  this  they 
may  do  the  community  great  service,  and  honorably  fulfil  their  own 
duties. 


364  LIFE  OP  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1825. 

But  at  Cambridge,  and  at  our  larger  colleges,  much  more  than  this 
can  be  done,  and  ought  to  be  done.  The  young  men  may  be  taught, 
as  well  as  examined.  The  large  apparatus  of  libraries,  instruments, 
and  collections,  and  the  greater  number  of  professors  and  tutors,  may 
be  turned  to  much  better  account,  and  made  to  produce  much  wider 
and  more  valuable  results.  The  increasing  demands  of  the  community 
may  be  here  met,  aud  our  high  places  for  education  may  easily  accom 
modate  themselves  more  wisely  to  the  spirit  and  wants  of  the  times  in 
which  we  live.  And  this,  if  done  at  all,  must  be  done  speedily ;  for 
new  institutions  are  springing  up,  which,  in  the  flexibility  of  their 
youth,  will  easily  take  the  forms  that  are  required  of  them,  while 
the  older  establishments,  if  they  suffer  themselves  to  grow  harder 
and  harder  in  their  ancient  habits  and  systems,  will  find,  when  the 
period  for  more  important  alterations  is  come,  and  free  universities 
are  demanded  and  called  forth,  that,  instead  of  being  able  to  place 
themselves  at  the  head  of  the  coming  changes  and  directing  their 
course,  they  will  only  be  the  first  victims  of  the  spirit  of  improve 
ment.* 

t      .: 

The  changes  introduced  into  the  arrangements  of  the  College, 
which  had  been  supported  and  defended  by  Mr.  Ticknor,  were 
so  broad  that  it  is  not  matter  of  surprise  to  find  them  met  by 
opposition,  and  that  the  experiment,  being  made  by  teachers 
unaccustomed  to  the  system,  and  who  had  repeatedly  expressed 
their  opinion  that  changes  were  unnecessary,  should  prove  un 
successful.  None  of  the  professors,  except  Mr.  Ticknor  and  Mr. 
Everett,  had  enjoyed  the  opportunities  of  a  thorough  training  in 
a  European  university.  Had  they  shared  Mr.  Ticknor's  advan 
tages,  or  partaken  of  his  spirit,  the  result  of  the  attempt  at  re 
form  would  unquestionably  have  been  more  satisfactory  than  it 

*  This  pamphlet  received  strong  encomiums  from  the  newspaper  press  in  differ 
ent  parts  of  the  country ;  but  especially  emphatic  among  these  were  the  expres 
sions  that  came  from  the  organs  of  the  great  religious  denominations  whose  sym 
pathies  had  long  been  averted  from  Harvard  College,  and  whose  opinions  Mr. 
Ticknor  did  not  share.  In  the  interests  of  good  learning,  sectarian  feeling  gave 
way,  and  not  only  the  "Boston  Recorder  and  Telegraph,"  but  the  "Journal 
of  Letters,  Christianity,  and  Civil  Affairs,"  published  at  Princeton  under  the 
auspices  of  the  College  there,  —  in  an  article  written  by  the  Rev.  Mr.  Bruen,  — 
warmly  commended  Mr.  Ticknor's  views,  and  his  courage  and  ability  in  pre 
senting  them. 


HAKVARD  COLLEGE.  365 


proved.  The  experiment  was  made  unwillingly,  and  was  soon 
given  up. 

In  the  autumn  of  1826,  when  a  committee  of  the  Overseers 
made  the  annual  visitation  of  the  College,  the  new  arrangements 
were  not  found  working  successfully  in  any  department  but  that 
of  the  modern  languages.  In  carrying  out  the  regulation  by 
which  the  students  were  divided  into  sections,  according  to  their 
capacity  and  proficiency,  it  was  attended  with  great  and  seem 
ingly  insurmountable  difficulties,  and  the  Overseers  recommended 
to  the  Corporation  some  modification  of  the  rule.  The  Corpora 
tion  accordingly  relaxed  its  binding  force,  and  early  in  1827  the 
Faculty  resolved  that  it  was  expedient  that  this  law  "  should  not 
be  applied  to  the  departments,  or  by  individual  instructors,  with 
out  the  assent  of  the  Faculty,"  biit  "  that  if  the  Department  of 
Modern  Languages  choose  to  apply  the  law  to  the  classes  in 
structed  by  that  department,  the  Faculty  assent." 

Although  this  vote  was  virtually  the  abandonment,  so  far  as 
the  College  was  concerned,  of  the  improvement  which  Mr.  Tick- 
nor  had  desired  to  accomplish,  it  left  him  free  to  regulate  his  own 
department  as  ha  chose,  and  gave  him  the  opportunity,  which  he 
did  not  fail  to  use,  to  exhibit  in  its  operation  the  advantages  of 
the  system  he  had  so  vigorously  urged.  The  following  account 
of  the  mode  in  which  he  governed  his  department,  and  of  the 
success  which  attended  his  course,  is  taken  from  a  letter  *  ad 
dressed  by  him  in  April,  1827,  to  the  President  and  Fellows  — 
the  Corporation  —  of  the  College  :  — 

I  receive  detailed  reports  from  each  of  its  three  instructors  at  the 
end  of  every  term,  teach  in  their  classes  myself  frequently,  introduce 
changes  in  their  modes  of  instruction,  and,  in  general,  look  upon  my 
self  as  responsible  for  the  good  management  of  the  students  under 
their  care  .....  The  object  of  the  law  was  in  part,  if  I  rightly  un 
derstand  it,  to  lead  to  instruction  by  subjects  rather  than  by  books,  so 
that,  for  instance,  a  student  should  not  merely  read  Livy  and  Horace, 
but  learn  Latin.  This  has  been  attempted  in  the  modern  languages, 

*  The  original  of  this  letter  has  not  been  found  ;  but  the  existence  of  a  careful 
copy,  preserved  by  Mr.  Ticknor  to  the  end  of  his  life,  shows  that  he  placed  a 
value  on  it,  as  a  true  record  of  his  views  and  of  his  work. 


366  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1827. 

and  I  believe  the  effect  has  been,  valuable,  though  undoubtedly  less 
so  than  if  the  same  system  had  been  pursued  and  an  attempt  made 
to  execute  the  law  in  other  studies. 

In  regard  to  the  elective  system,  as  it  is  now  called,  he 
says: — 

In  the  modern  languages,  especially,  the  operation  of  the  principle 
of  choice  was  decisive.  The  right  to  choose  was  presented,  it  appears, 
in  two  hundred  and  forty  instances,  and  was  accepted  in  two  hundred 
and  twenty-seven.  That  it  has  been  beneficial  in  this  branch  I  have 
had  full  proof,  in  the  alacrity  and  earnestness  with  which  a  very  large 
proportion  of  those  who  have  been  permitted  to  choose  have  pursued 
the  studies  they  have  chosen. 

As  to  the  application  of  Law  61,  for  "divisions  with  reference 
to  proficiency,"  which  was  made  for  only  one  year  and  to  one 
class,  and  during  that  time  very  imperfectly  administered,  he 
says : — 

The  remaining  branch  to  which  this  law  was  applicable  was 
French  ;  and  to  this  branch  its  application  began  three  months  later 
than  to  the  other  branches,  because  the  Freshmen  do  not  begin  French 
till  they  have  been  three  months  in  College,  pursuing  other  studies. 
Fifty-five  Freshmen  entered  for  French,  in  January,  1826.  Seven  of 
them,  who  knew  more  or  less  of  the  language,  were  put  at  once  into 
an  advanced  division.  The  remaining  forty-eight,  who  were  wholly 
ignorant  of  it,  were  broken  into  five  alphabetical  divisions,  which  after 
March,  when  their  powers  became  known,  were  arranged  into  five 
divisions  according  to  proficiency.  At  the  end  of  the  first  term  there 
was  already  a  wide  difference  between  them.  At  the  end  of  the  sec 
ond  there  were  about  two  hundred  and  fifty  pages  between  them.  And 
at  the  end  of  the  third  term,  when  the  year  was  completed,  there  were 
more  than  five  hundred  pages  between  them,  besides  a  great  difference 
in  grammatical  progress.  The  first  of  these  divisions  had,  in  fact, 
overtaken  the  division  that  began  in  advance  from  previous  knowl 
edge,  and  had  for  three  months  been  studying  with  them,  and,  in  in 
dividual  cases,  leading  them  with  a  decided  superiority. 

The  justice  and  benefit  of  such  an  administration  of  the  law  was 
plainly  felt  by  all  the  fifty-five,  nor  has  there  been  a  murmur  or  com 
plaint  against  it,  from  the  first  moment  of  its  application  in  French  to 
the  present  time.  On  the  contrary,  it  has  been  felt  and  used  as  an 
advantage  by  all  of  them  ;  for  while  the  upper  divisions  have  been 


JR.  36.]  HARVAED  COLLEGE.  367 

constantly  and  successfully  pressing  forward,  the  lower  ones  have 
asked  it,  as  a  favor,  to  be  permitted  to  go  back  and  pass  a  second  time 
carefully  over  the  elements.  All,  therefore,  have  been  satisfied, — I 
believe  I  may  add,  better  satisfied  than  in  any  other  study,  —  and  all 
of  them  —  except  about  five,  who,  for  idleness,  negligence,  and  other 
misconduct,  might  have  been  dismissed  from  College  long  ago  —  have 
been  advanced  according  to  their  respective  talents ;  so  that  two  di 
visions,  having  made  themselves  sufficiently  familiar  with  French  to 
read  it  anywhere,  to  write  it  decently,  and  to  speak  it  a  little,  have 
lately  been  dismissed  from  its  study,  while  two  other  divisions  are 
still  going  on  with  it,  earnestly  and  successfully,  according  to  their 
respective  powers. 

I  know  it  has  been  said  that  the  application  of  this  law,  for  prog 
ress  according  to  capacity  and  proficiency,  was  less  unwelcome  to  the 
students  in  French,  because  they  entered  with  unequal  qualifications. 
But  there  is  no  foundation  for  this  suggestion,  for  there  were  but 
seven  out  of  fifty-five  who  knew  anything  of  the  language,  and  the 
remaining  forty-eight  entered  with  an  equality  of  pretensions  with 
which  forty-eight  never  entered  in  anything  else  since  the  College  was 
founded,  for  they  entered  in  entire  ignorance.  Moreover,  of  the  seven 
who  entered  more  or  less  advanced,  two  fell  long  since  to  the  bottom 
of  the  class,  or  near  it ;  and  all  the  other  five  have  been  compelled 
to  see  themselves  successively  passed  by  those  who  entered  without 
knowing  a  word  of  French  ;  while,  at  the  same  time,  the  relative  po 
sition  of  the  whole  fifty-five  has  been  freely  and  frequently  changed, 
according  to  the  development  of  their  talents  and  industry,  and  every 
one  has  kept  his  place,  if  he  has  kept  it,  only  by  his  exertions.  The 
difference,  therefore,  in  the  effect  produced  by  the  application  of  the 
law  in  French  and  in  the  other  studies  was  not  owing  to  any  such  cir 
cumstance  as  has  been  suggested.  If  the  difference  in  original  qualifi 
cations  had  been  all,  the  law,  as  it  was  applied,  would  have  been  more 
odious  in  French  than  in  anything  else.  But  the  real  difference  was, 
that  in  French  the  law  was  administered,  according  to  its  spirit  and 
intent,  by  officers  who  approved  it,  and  that  it  was,  from  this  admin 
istration  of  it,  felt  by  the  students  to  be  useful,  just,  and  beneficial. 

These  extracts  show  not  only  Mr.  Ticknor's  opinions  on  this 
subject,  but  the  labor  he  was  willing  to  incur,  not  merely  to 
carry  out  his  system,  but  to  do  the  work  of  instruction  as  he 
felt  it  ought  to  be  done,  and  in  a  manner  approaching  that  in 
which  he  had  seen  it  done  in  Europe.  After  this  period  he  was 


368  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1827. 

allowed  to  administer  his  own  department  in  his  own  way,*  and 
when,  after  Dr.  Kirkland's  resignation  and  Mr.  Quincy's  advent 
as  his  successor  in  the  Presidency,  a  new  spirit  and  vigor  were 
infused  into  the  affairs  of  the  College,  Mr.  Ticknor  had  no  longer 
the  same  difficulties  to  contend  with  as  in  earlier  years.  He 
continued  to  labor  zealously,  so  that,  looking  back  afterwards,  he 
said  that  he  did,  during  those  years,  three  quarters  more  work 
than  was  required  of  him  by  the  statutes.  He  felt  that  the  sys 
tem  on  which  he  worked  was  successful,  and  often  dwelt  with 
satisfaction  on  the  fact  that,  in  the  fifteen  years  during  which  he 
was  professor,  he  was  never  obliged  to  apply  to  the  College  Fac 
ulty  on  account  of  any  misdemeanor  in  the  recitation-rooms 
under  his  charge,  or  in  his  lecture-room;  nor  did  he  ever  send 
up  the  name  of  any  young  man  for  reproof.  The  instructors  un 
der  him  were  foreigners,  —  for  he  held  strongly  the  opinion  that 
a  foreign  language  should  be  taught  only  by  one  to  whom  it 
is  native,  —  yet  he  never  found  trouble  arising  between  these 
teachers  and  the  young  men.t 

Mr.  Ticknor's  purposes,  throughout,  should  be  judged  by  the 
ultimate  results  which  he  expected  to  follow  a  fair  trial  of  the 
new  system.  The  division  of  the  classes  by  proficiency  he  re 
garded  as  indispensable,  so  long  as  the  strictly  academic  character 
of  the  College  was  to  continue ;  but  he  supposed  that  it  would 
fall  away  naturally  when  the  other  important  changes  had  taken 
effect,  and  an  unlimited  choice  of  studies,  as  in  any  university, 
had  been  introduced.  His  pamphlet  was  written  wholly  with 
this  ulterior  view  and  hope.+ 

What  he  contemplated,  and  for  four  or  five  years  labored  to 

*  In  the  "Tabular  View"  issued  at  the  beginning  of  each  term,  the  Depart 
ment  of  Modern  Languages  was  thenceforward,  while  Mr.  Ticknor  remained  at 
its  head,  entered  in  a  separate  and  peculiar  manner,  leaving  all  details  to  the 
discretion  of  the  professor. 

t  M.  Sales  taught  French  during  all  the  years  that  Mr.  Ticknor  held  the  pro 
fessorship  ;  and,  having  passed  some  years  in  Spain,  he  also  taught  Spanish  so 
far  as  it  was  needed.  Dr.  Follen  was,  after  1825,  the  German  instructor; 
Signer  Bachi,  the  Italian  ;  and  they  all  worked  in  the  same  spirit  with  the  pro 
fessor  who  appointed  and  directed  them. 

J  These  are  nearly  his  own.  words,  written  on  the  margin  of  the  pamphlet. 


J&.  36.]  HARVARD  COLLEGE.  369 

bring  about,  was  to  make  such  modifications  in  the  working  of 
the  academic  system,  and  to  introduce  such  collateral  aids,  as 
would  give  the  College  ultimately  an  actual  as  well  as  nominal 
right  to  call  itself  a  university.  Whether  the  lapse  of  fifty  years 
has  justified  his  efforts  and  has  shown  that  he  was  a  wise  re 
former  in  advance  of  his  time,  the  progress  that  Harvard  has 
made,  and  is  making,  towards  the  object  at  which  he  aimed,  will 
attest. 


16 


370  LIFE  OP  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1826. 


CHAPTEE    XIX. 

Letter  to  Mr.  Webster.  —  Libraries  in  Boston.  —  Letters  from  West 
Point.  —  Colonel  Thayer.  —  Annual  Examination  of  the  Military 
Academy. — Death  of  N.  A.  Haven. —  Webster's  Eulogy  on  Adams 
and  Jefferson.  —  Memoir  of  Mr.  Haven.  —  Visit  to  Washington. 

IN"  1823  Mr.  Ticknor  was  chosen  a  Trustee  of  the  Boston 
Athenaeum,  and  at  one  time  was  its  Vice-President,  and  he 
became  greatly  interested  in  enlarging  the  scope  and  extending 
the  usefulness  of  this  excellent  institution.  An  effort  was  made 
in  1826  to  increase  its  funds,  which  was  successful,  chiefly 
through  the  liberality  of  Colonel  Thomas  H.  Perkins,  and  of 
his  brother,  Mr.  James  Perkins.  With  this  was  combined  a 
project  to  unite  the  various  subscription  and  society  libraries  of 
the  city  in  one  organization  with  the  Athenaeum ;  and  of  this 
plan  Mr.  Ticknor,  with  his  liberal  views  of  the  needs  of  public 
culture,  was  one  of  the  most,  earnest  promoters.  Unfortunately 
the  difficulties  in  carrying  out  the  entire  scheme  proved  insur 
mountable. 

During  the  winter  of  1826  Mr.  Ticknor,  in  addition  to  his 
other  occupations  and  pursuits,  was  much  engaged  in  these 
efforts,  in  personally  seeking  subscriptions,  and  in  preparing  lists 
of  books  to  be  added  to  the  library.  The  following  letter  to 
Mr.  Webster  contains  some  account  of  the  plan  :  — 

To  MB.  WEBSTER. 

BOSTON,  February  2,  1826. 

MY  DEAR  SIR,  —  We  are  much  indebted  to  you  for  your  agreeable 
letter,  and  I  should  have  answered  it  sooner,  but  really,  when  every 
morning's  breakfast-table  was  covered  with  the  debates  on  the  Judi 
ciary  Bill,  I  could  not  find  it  in  my  conscience.  However,  you  have 


&.  34]  BOSTON  ATHENAEUM.  371 

now  got  that  burden  off  your  shoulders Your  friends  here  feel 

very  happy  at  the  result,  and  at  the  manner  in  which  it  was  obtained. 
You  seem  now  to  be  resting  yourself,  while  the  rest  of  the  house  are 
trying  their  skill  on  the  subject  of  fortifications  and  money  bills. 
But  I  hope  you  will  be  on  the  floor  again  pretty  soon,  for  we  feel, 
when  we  take  up  the  "  Intelligencer  "  and  find  you  are  not  in  the  bill 
of  fare,  very  much  as  the  boys  of  Paris  did  in  the  Revolution,  on 
those  days  when  nobody's  head  was  to  be  cut  off,  and  they  went  home 
crying  out,  "Point  de  fete  aujourd'hui." 

I  wish  I  could  tell  you  something  from  here  that  would  interest 
you.  But  my  shop  is  a  small  one,  and  no  great  assortment  in  it. 
The  College  is  going  on  very  well,  as  far  as  changes  are  concerned. 
Frank  Gray  is  elected  into  the  Corporation,  and  will  no  doubt  be  ap 
proved  by  the  Overseers  next  Thursday.  This  is  a  good  change 

Further  we  will  tell  you  when  you  attend  the  meeting  of  the  Over 
seers  next  June,  and  ask  what  has  been  done.  For  you  promised 
last  winter  to  ask  the  question,  and  I  hope  you  will  not  cease  to  ask 
it  until  all  has  been  done  that  ought  to  be 

We  are  making  quite  a  movement  about  libraries,  lecture-rooms, 
Athenseum,  etc.  I  have  a  project,  which  may  or  may  not  succeed  ; 
but  I  hope  it  will.  The  project  is,  to  unite  into  one  establishment, 
viz.  the  Athenseum,  all  the  public  libraries  in  town  ;  such  as  the 
Arch  Library,  the  Medical  Library,  the  new  Scientific  Library,  and 
so  on,  and  then  let  the  whole  circulate,  Athenaeum  and  all.  In  this 
way,  there  will  be  an  end.  of  buying  duplicates,  paying  double  rents, 
double  librarians,  etc.  ;  the  whole  money  raised  will  go  to  books,  and 
all  the  books  will  be  made  useful.  To  this  great  establishment  I 
would  attach  all  the  lectures  wanted,  whether  fashionable,  popular, 
scientific,  —  for  the  mechanics,  or  their  employers  ;  and  have  the  whole 
made  a  Capitol  of  the  knowledge  of  the  town,  with  its  uses,  which  I 
would  open  to  the  public,  according  to  the  admirable  direction  in  the 
Charter  of  the  University  of  Gottingen,  Quam  commodissime,  quam- 
que  latissimb.  Mr.  Prescott,  Judge  Jackson,  Dr.  Bowditch,  and  a  few 
young  men  are  much  in  earnest  about  it 

We  went  the  other  night  to  a  great  ball  at  Colonel  Thorndike's,  a 
part  of  which  extended  into  your  house,*  which  it  was  not  altogether 
agreeable  to » enter  without  finding  its  owners  there  to  welcome  us. 
A  few  nights  afterwards  we  had  the  whole  town  turned  in  upon  our 
selves,  for  the  first  time  in  our  lives I  am  very  glad  you  like 

*  The  two  houses  were  connected  by  doors,  which  could  be  opened  on  such 
occasions. 


372  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1826. 

Mr.  Vaughan.*  He  is,  I  think,  one  of  the  most  respectable  gentle 
men  I  have  ever  known.  Do  persuade  him  to  come  to  the  North 
next  summer.  Finally,  write  to  us  when  you  can,  come  home  as 
soon  as  you  can,  and  believe  in  us  as  truly  as  you  can. 

Yours  always, 

GEO.  TICKNOR. 

Among  the  friends  most  valued  by  Mr.  Ticknor  was  his  col 
lege  classmate,  Sylvanus  Thayer,  who,  having  entered  the  army 
of  the  United  States,  and  served  with  distinction,  was  appointed 
Superintendent  of  the  Military  Academy  at  West  Point  in  1817, 
and  held  that  position  for  sixteen  years.  By  force  and  dignity 
of  character,  energy,  good  judgment,  and  professional  knowledge 
and  ability,  he  gave  new  life  to  the  school  under  his  charge,  and 
raised  it  to  that  high  position,  as  an  establishment  for  military 
education,  which  it  has  since  maintained. 

Colonel  Thayer  had  repeatedly  urged  Mr.  Ticknor  to  serve  as 
a  member  of  the  Board  of  Visitors,  at  one  of  the  annual  exam 
inations  of  the  Academy.  In  the  spring  of  1826,  Mr.  Ticknor 
having  expressed  his  readiness  to  attend  the  examination  of  that 
year,  he  was  appointed  among  the  other  Visitors,  and  went  to 
West  Point  on  the  1st  of  June. 

The  following  extracts  from  his  letters,  written  from  there,  give 
an  excellent  picture  of  the  condition  of  the  school,  and  of  the 
character  and  habits  of  its  distinguished  Superintendent. 

To  MBS.  TICKNOB. 

WEST  POINT,  June  5,  1826. 

This  morning  the  Board  met  ;  nine  on  the  ground.  General 
Houston  was  chosen  President,  and,  as  usual,  the  honor  of  doing 
the  work  fell  to  me,  as  Secretary.  We  have  been  nine  hours  at 
the  examination  to-day.  This  evening  Governor  Morrow,  of  Ohio, 
President  Bligh,  formerly  of  Transylvania  University,  and  Mr. 
Van  Buren  have  arrived  ;  a  salute  has  been  fired,  and  all  is  in 
motion. 

*  British  Minister  at  Washington,  formerly  Secretary  of  Legation  at  Madrid. 
See  ante,  p.  209. 


M.  31]  WEST  POINT.  373 

When  I  arrived  last  evening,  I  walked  up  to  our  old  friend  Coz- 
zens's  ;  meantime  Thayer  had  gone  to  the  boat  to  meet  me,  and  we 
missed  one  another.  In  a  few  moments,  however,  he  came  in,  and 
ordered  my  luggage  to  his  house,  where  I  am  established  in  great 
comfort  and  quiet The  examination  is  a  very  laborious  busi 
ness,  and  will  prove,  no  doubt,  tedious  to  most  of  those  concerned  in 
it.  To  me,  who  must  keep  the  records  and  write  the  reports,  it  will 
give  too  much  occupation  to  permit  me  to  be  very  dull.  What  we 
have  done  to-day  has  been  rather  interesting. 

Precisely  at  nine  o'clock  the  whole  Staff  of  the  Academy  assembled  at 
Thayer's  house,  in  full  uniform.  I  was  presented  to  them,  and  when 
this  little  ceremony  was  over  we  all  went  to  Cozzens's,  where  all 
were  presented  to  the  rest  of  the  Board  of  Examiners.  The  Board 
then  went  to  a  room  by  itself,  and  was  called  to  order  by  Commodore 
Bainbridge,  and  General  Houston,  being  the  chief  military  personage 
on  the  ground,  was  chosen  President  ;  though  for  the  rest,  he  is  a 
pretty  coarse  Tennessean,  who  tries  to  be  kind,  good-natured,  and 
even  elegant The  other  members  are  pleasant  enough,  par 
ticularly  the  three  commodores,  Bainbridge,  Chauncey,  and  Jones, 
who  are  very  agreeable  indeed,  and  Colonel  White  of  Florida,  who 
proves  an  amiable,  gentlemanlike  man. 

We  went  forthwith  to  the  examination,  which  was  extremely 
thorough.  Thirteen  young  men  were  under  the  screw  four  hours,  on 
a  single  branch,  and  never  less  than  four  on  the  floor,  either  drawing 
on  the  blackboard  or  answering  questions  every  moment,  so  that  each 
one  had  above  an  hour's  work  to  go  through  ;  and,  as  I  said,  in  a 
single  hranch.  It  was  the  lowest  section  of  the  upper  class,  but  no 
mistake  was  made,  except  by  one  Cadet.  Of  course  it  was  as  nearly 
perfect  as  anything  of  the  kind  ever  was.  The  manner,  too,  was 
quite  remarkable.  The  young  men  do  not  rise  when  they  answer  ; 
they  are  all  addressed  as  Mr.  So-and-so  ;  and  when  the  drum  beat 
outside  for  one  o'clock,  Colonel  Thayer  adjourned  the  examination 
while  a  Cadet  was  speaking,  so  exactly  is  everything  done  here.  We 
dined  at  Cozzens's,  and  the  examination  was  continued  in  the  after 
noon  till  seven  o'clock. 

My  residence  at  Thayer's  is  extremely  agreeable  ;  that  is,  the  little 
time  I  pass  there.  He  seems  to  feel  towards  me  just  as  he  did  nine 
teen  years  ago,  just  as  if  we  had  never  been  separated.  The  house  is 
perfectly  quiet,  and  there  is  a  good  deal  of  dignity  in  the  sort  of  soli 
tude  in  which  he  lives,  and  without  any  female  attendant,  yet  with 
the  most  perfect  neatness,  order,  and  comfort,  in  all  his  arrangements. 


374  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1826. 

There  is  nothing  at  all  either  repulsive  or  stiff  in  his  manner  to  the 
officers  and  teachers  under  him,  or  to  the  Cadets.  All  the  members 
of  the  Board  seem  to  have  the  most  thorough  admiration  of  him. 

June  10. 

I  delight  exceedingly  in  the  exactness  with  which  everything  is 
done  here.  The  morning  gun  is  fired  exactly  at  sunrise,  though  I  am 
free  to  say  I  sleep  well  enough  to  hear  it  rarely,  and  as  there  never 
seems  to  be  the  least  noise  in  Thayer's  house,  the  first  thing  I  hear  is 
the  full  band,  when,  precisely  at  six,  the  manoeuvring  being  over,  the 
corps  of  Cadets  begins  its  marching.  I  get  up  immediately,  and 
when  Thayer  comes  home,  at  half  past  six,  from  parade,  he  brings  me 
your  letter.  You  will  hardly  believe  how  welcome  his  step  is  to  me, 
and  how  perfectly  I  have  learnt  to  distinguish  it  from  that  of  his 
Adjutant,  his  Orderly,  or  his  servant,  none  of  whom  ever  gives  me  my 
letters.  I  sometimes  think  he  takes  a  pleasure  in  doing  it  himself,  — 
at  any  rate,  he  always  calls  me  by  my  Christian  name  when  he  brings 
them.  Breakfast  precisely  at  seven  ;  then  we  have  all  the  newspapers, 
and,  a  little  before  eight  o'clock,  Thayer  puts  on  his  full-dress  coat  and 
sword,  and  when  the  bugle  sounds  we  are  always  at  Mr.  Cozzens's, 
where  Thayer  takes  off  his  hat  and  inquires  if  the  President  of  the 
Board  is  ready  to  attend  at  the  examination-room  ;  if  he  is,  the 
Commandant  conducts  him  to  it  with  great  ceremony,  followed  by 
the  Board.  If  he  is  not  ready,  Thayer  goes  without  him  ;  he  waits 
for  no  man. 

In  the  examination-room  Thayer  presides  at  one  table,  surrounded 
by  the  Academic  Staff ;  General  Houston  at  the  other,  surrounded  by 
the  Visitors.  In  front  of  the  last  table  two  enormous  blackboards, 
eight  feet  by  five,  are  placed  on  easels ;  and  at  each  of  these  boards 
stand  two  Cadets,  one  answering  questions  or  demonstrating,  and 
the  other  three  preparing  the  problems  that  are  given  to  them.  In 
this  way,  if  an  examination  of  sixteen  young  men  lasts  four  hours  on 
one  subject,  each  of  them  will  have  had  one  hour's  public  examina 
tion  on  it ;  and  the  fact  is,  that  each  of  the  forty  Cadets  in  the  upper 
class  will  to-night  have  had  about  five  hours'  personal  examination. 
While  the  examination  goes  on,  one  person  sits  between  the  tables 
and  asks  questions,  but  other  members  of  the  Staff  and  of  the  Board 
join  in  the  examination  frequently,  as  their  interest  moves  them. 
The  young  men  have  that  composure  which  comes  from  thoroughness, 
and  unite,  to  a  remarkable  degree,  ease  with  respectful  manners 
towards  their  teachers 


M.  31]  COLONEL  SYLVANUS  THAYEB.  375 

June  12,  1826. 

Yesterday  (Sunday)  afternoon  I  stayed  at  home,  and  had  a  solid 
talk  of  three  hours  with  Thayer,  concerning  his  whole  management 
of  this  institution  from  the  time  he  took  it  in  hand.  It  was  very  in 
teresting,  and  satisfied  me,  more  and  more,  of  the  value  and  efficiency  of 
his  system.  One  proof  of  it,  which  I  have  just  learned,  is  very  striking. 
Before  Thayer  came  here  it  was  not  generally  easy  to  find  young  men 
enough  to  take  Cadet's  warrants  to  keep  the  Academy  full.  But  for 
the  last  two  or  three  years  there  have  been,  annually,  more  than  a 
thousand  applications  for  warrants,  and  there  is  at  this  moment  not  a 
small  number  of  the  sons  of  both  the  richest  and  the  most  consid 
erable  men  of  the  country  at  the  Academy,  to  the  great  gratification 
of  their  families.  I  think  this  state  of  things  gratifies  Thayer  very 
much,  and  consoles  him  for  the  considerable  privations,  and  the  great 
and  increasing  labor  he  is  obliged  to  undergo 

nth.  —  Thayer  is  a  wonderful  man.  In  the  course  of  the  fortnight 
I  have  been  here,  he  has  every  morning  been  in  his  office  doing  busi 
ness  from  six  to  seven  o'clock  ;  from  seven  to  eight  he  breakfasts,  gen 
erally  with  company  ;  then  goes  to  the  examination-room,  and  for 
five  complete  hours  never  so  much  as  rises  from  his  chair.  From  one 
to  three  he  has  his  dinner-party  ;  from  three  to  seven  again  unmoved 
in  his  chair,  though  he  is  neither  stiff  nor  pretending  about  it.  At 
seven  he  goes  on  parade  ;  from  half  past  seven  to  eight  does  business 
with  the  Cadets,  and  from  eight  to  nine,  or  even  till  eleven,  he  is 
liable  to  have  meetings  with  the  Academic  Staff.  Yet  with  all  this 
labor,  and  the  whole  responsibility  of  the  institution,  the  examina 
tion,  and  the  accommodation  of  the  Visitors,  on  his  hands,  he  is 
always  fresh,  prompt,  ready,  and  pleasant ;  never  fails  to  receive  me 
under  all  circumstances  with  the  same  unencumbered  and  affectionate 
manner,  and  seems,  in  short,  as  if  he  were  more  of  a  spectator  than  I 
am.  I  do  not  believe  there  are  three  persons  in  the  country  who 
could  fill  his  place  ;  and  Totten  said  very  well  the  other  day,  when 
somebody  told  him,  —  what  is  no  doubt  true,  —  that  if  Thayer  were 
to  resign,  he  would  be  the  only  man  who  could  take  his  place, — 
"  No :  no  man  would  be  indiscreet  enough  to  take  the  place  after 
Thayer ;  it  would  be  as  bad  as  being  President  of  the  Royal  Society, 
after  Newton."  .... 

The  examination,  the  exhibition  of  the  institution,  has  gratified  me 
beyond  my  expectations,  and  this  feeling  I  believe  I  share  with  the 
rest  of  the  Visitors.  There  is  a  thoroughness,  promptness,  and  effi 
ciency  in  the  knowledge  of  the  Cadets  which  I  have  never  seen  before, 
and  which  I  did  not  expect  to  find  here 


376  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1826. 

June  24,  1826. 

MY  DEAREST  WIFE,  —  It  is  all  over,  all  well  over,  and  I  am  very 
much  contented  and  light-hearted.  Yesterday,  however,  was  a  real 
flurry,  as  I  thought  it  would  be.  I  began  the  general  report  day 
before  yesterday,  in  the  afternoon.  It  was  plainly  to  be  about  thirty 
pages  long  ;  the  two  other  committees  who  were  to  furnish  materials 
for  a  large  part  of  it  had  behaved  very  shabbily,  neglected  their  duty, 
and  done  nothing  but  collect  documents,  which  they  had  neither  ex 
amined  nor  digested.  In  short,  the  whole  work  came  upon  me.  At 
the  same  time  the  French  examination  was  going  on,  which  it  was  my 
particular  duty,  from  the  first,  to  superintend  and  share.  Everything, 
therefore,  cume  at  once.  That  afternoon  and  night  I  wrote  about  ten 
pages,  and  examined  two  sections  in  French.  Yesterday  I  examined 
two  other  sections,  dined  abroad,  examined  the  Hospital,  and  wrote 
twenty  pages.  This  morning  before  breakfast  I  finished  it  [the  re 
port].  At  eleven  o'clock  the  examination  was  finished,  and  the 
report  read,  and  signed  by  all  the  Board.  At  twelve  we  had  a  little 
address  to  the  Cadets  by  Kane,  which  was  very  neat  and  appropriate. 
I  declined  delivering  it,  having  enough  else  to  do  ;  and  I  am  glad 
I  did,  for  it  was  done  remarkably  well  by  Kane,  whom,  by  the  by,  I 
am  very  glad  I  have  learnt  to  know. 

Very  soon  after  his  arrival  at  West  Point,  Mr.  Ticknor  re 
ceived  the  sad  news  of  the  illness  and  death  of  his  friend, 
Mr.  N".  A.  Hawn,  of  Portsmouth.  A  close  sympathy  in  tastes, 
and  an  accordance  of  judgment  in  respect  to  the  motives  of 
action,  the  objects  of  life,  and  the  foundation  of  character,  had 
given  to  their  friendship  unusual  closeness  and  intimacy. 

Mr.  Haven  died  on  the  3d  of  June,  and  on  the  9th  Mr. 
Ticknor  wrote  :  — 

Here,  surrounded  by  those  who  take  no  interest  in  my  feelings, 
I  cannot  help  expressing  to  you  my  deep  sorrow  at  the  loss  of  Haven. 
It  pursues  me  wherever  I  go.  I  did  not  think  it  would  have  fallen 
so  heavily  on  my  heart ;  or,  rather,  I  thought  I  had  more  prepared 
myself  for  it.  But  there  is  no  preparation  for  such  things  ;  we  may 
feel  composed,  as  we  see  one  who  is  dear  to  us  gradually  sinking 
away  from  our  cares  and  affections  ;  but  the  last  step,  the  change 
from  life  to  death,  is  so  sudden,  so  great,  that  there  is  no  proper 
preparation  for  it.  I  felt  as  if  it  were  unexpected,  when  I  read  your 
letter  this  morning.  The  blood  rushed  to  my  head  as  if  I  had  then 


M.  34.]  DEATH  OF  N.  A.   HAVEN.  377 

received  the  first  intimation  of  his  danger.  God's  will  be  done.  I 
shall  have  few  losses  to  bear,  that  will  reach  so  far  in  their  conse 
quences.* 

The  relatives  and  friends  of  Mr.  Haven,  by  whose  early  deatli 
—  at  the  age  of  thirty-six  —  many  hearts  were  saddened,  and 
many  hopes  disappointed,  were  desirous  to  have  some  memorial 
of  one  so  loved  and  valued.  There  was  a  general  wish  among 
them  that  this  should  be  prepared  by  Mr.  Ticknor,  and  a  vol 
ume  was  accordingly  arranged  by  him,  and  printed  for  private 
circulation,  consisting  of  Mr.  Haven's  writings,  —  including  two 
occasional  discourses,  —  with  a  brief  memoir,  which  is  a  grace 
ful  sketch  of  a  life  admirable  for  moral  beauty,  and  for  calm, 
intellectual  strength. 

The  4th  of  July,  1826,  the  fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  signing 
of  the  Declaration  of  the  Independence  of  the  United  States, 
was  made  memorable  by  the  deaths  of  John  Adams  and  Thomas 
Jefferson,  the  two  Presidents  who  succeeded  Washington.  The 
coincidence  of  their  deaths  on  this  anniversary  was  one  to  touch 
the  imagination  and  the  feelings  of  the  whole  nation,  and  the 
sentiment  thus  roused  found  its  best  expression  in  the  Eulogy 
on  the  two  Ex-Presidents,  delivered  by  Mr.  Webster,  on  the  2d 
of  August  following,  in  Faneuil  Hall,  Boston,  in  .(presence  of  the 
City  Government  and  the  assembled  citizens.t 

*  Mr.  Haven's  attachment  to  Mr.  Ticknor  is  expressed  in  a  letter  to  Miss 
Eliza  Buckminster,  written  at  Amsterdam,  July  24,  1815,  when  Mr.  Haven  was 
twenty-five  and  Mr.  Ticknor  twenty-four  years  old.  He  says  :  "Ticknor  is 
happier  than  I  thought  he  ever  could  be  when  ahsent  from  home ;  but  his 
feelings  are  so  entirely  under  the  control  of  his  reason,  his  mind  is  so  perfectly 
regulated  and  balanced,  that  he  will  always  be  happy  when  discharging  what 
he  believes  to  be  his  duty.  An  intimate  acquaintance  of  six  years,  in  which  I 
have  treated  him  with  the  confidence  of  a  brother,  and  have  received  from  him 
favors  which  years  of  gratitude  can  hardly  repay,  has  given  me  a  full  knowl 
edge  of  his  character  and  feelings.  I  should  do  injustice  to  him,  and  to  myself, 
if  I  ever  spoke  of  him  with  moderate  praise.  There  has  never  been  an  action 
of  his  life,  since  I  have  known  him,  which  I  have  ultimately  discovered  to  be 
wrong,  nor  a  single  moment,  even  in  our  wildest  hours,  in  which  he  has  either 
vexed  or  irritated  me.  But  you  know  him,  and  I  need  not  praise  him." 

t  A  full  account  of  the  Eulogy,  and  of  the  scene  of  its  delivery,  written  by 
Mr.  Ticknor,  is  given  in  Mr.  Curtis's  "Life  of  Webster,"  Vol.  I.  p.  274. 


378  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1826. 

Mr.  Ticknor  describes  it  in  the  following  letter  :  — 

To  C.  S.  DAVEIS,  PORTLAND. 

NEWPORT,  RHODE  ISLAND,  August  17,  1826. 

Your  letter  of  Sunday  evening,  my  dear  Charles,  arrived  at  Boston 
on  Wednesday  morning,  just  as  we  were  bustling  away  to  hear  the 
great  oration.  Would  it  had  been  yourself  instead  of  your  sign- 
manual  ;  for  it  would  have  given  you  a  higher  and  sublimer  notion 
of  oratory  than  you  ever  had  before,  if  you  had  beheld  and  felt  Mr. 
Webster's  presence  and  power,  as  he  stood  there  transfigured  by  the 
genius  of  eloquence,  and  fulfilling,  in  his  own  person,  all  he  so  mar 
vellously  described  as  peculiar  to  John  Adams.  It  was  altogether  a 
different  affair  from  that  at  Bunker  Hill,  much  more  solemn,  impos 
ing,  and  sublime.  The  hall  was  better  arranged  than  I  ever  saw  any 
thing  among  us,  being  almost  entirely  and  very  gracefully  covered 
Avith  black  ;  above  four  thousand  people  were  quietly  seated  and 
perfectly  silent ;  the  light  was  very  dim,  partly  from  the  mourning 
drapery,  and  partly  from  the  obstruction  of  the  windows  with  the 
bodies  of  the  audience  who  thronged  inside  and  outside  ;  and  Mr. 
Webster  stood  forward  on  an  open  stage,  alone  in  the  midst  of  the 
subdued  multitude,  and  spoke  without  hesitation  and  with  unmiti 
gated  power  for  an  hour  and  fifty  minutes,  hardly  once  recurring  to 
his  notes,  which  lay  on  a  table  partly  behind  him,  and  then  rather 
to  make  a  pause  than  to  refresh  his  recollections.  Every  word  he 
spoke  was  distinctly  heard  in  every  part  of  that  vast  throng,  so  awe 
struck  were  they  beneath  his  power. 

The  tone  of  the  great  body  of  the  discourse  was  solemn  and  ele 
vated,  and  though  at  intervals  a  murmur  of  applause  and  excitement 
ran  through  the  crowd,  it  was  immediately  hushed  by  the  very 
occasion  itself,  and  by  the  grave  expression  of  the  speaker's  counte 
nance  and  manner,  and  all  became  as  silent  as  death.  But  at  the 
conclusion  he  forsook  this  tone,  and  addressed  the  people  on  the 
responsibility  that  rests  with  the  present  generation,  as  heirs  to  those 
who  achieved  our  independence  for  us,  and  on  the  hopes  and  encour 
agements  we  have  to  perform  boldly  and  faithfully  the  duties  that 
have  fallen  upon  us  ;  so  that  when  he  ended,  the  minds  of  men  were 
wrought  up  to  an  uncontrollable  excitement,  and  there  followed 
three  tremendous  cheers,  inappropriate  indeed  to  the  occasion,  but 
as  inevitable  as  any  other  great  movement  of  nature 

He  was  at  our  house  the  evening  before,  entirely  disencumbered 


&.  35.]  OCCUPATIONS.  379 

and  careless  ;  and  dined  with  us  unceremoniously  after  it  was  over, 
as  playful  as  a  kitten.*  This  is  what  I  think  may  be  called  a  great 
man. 

A  few  months  later  he  writes  thus  of  his  various  occupations, 
and  especially  of  his  sketch  of  his  friend  Haven  :  — 

To  C.  S.  DAVEIS,  PORTLAND. 

BOSTON,  February  24,  1827. 

Sickness,  much  labor,  and  many  cares,  my  dear  Charles,  have  prex 
vented  me  from  writing  to  you  or  to  anybody  else,  for  a  long  time, 
except  on  business  that  could  not  be  postponed.  But  I  begin  to  feel 
a  little  relieved 

The  Athenseum,  the  College,  the  Hospital,  Mr.  Bowditch's  office,t 
and  many  other  things  have  made  such  constant  demands  on  my 
time,  that  I  have  been  more  teased  than  I  ever  was  in  my  life,  and 
have  hardly  known  a  quiet  hour,  except  in  A.'s  room,  since  last 
November. 

Among  other  things  which  have  much  occupied  and  a  good  deal 

*  It  may  be  noticed  that  Mr.  Ticknor  had  already  (p.  331)  applied  to  Mr. 
Webster  this  simile,  which  will  seem  to  many  persons  amusingly  inappro 
priate  ;  but  Mr.  Ticknor  was  greatly  in  the  habit  of  applying  it  thus  to  his 
grave  and  imposing  friend,  who  in  his  hours  of  easy  gayety  justified  its  use 
in  a  surprising  way. 

t  He  so  calls  the  Massachusetts  Hospital  Life  Insurance  Company,  which  is 
substantially  a  trust  company,  a  part  of  whose  profits  go  to  the  uses  of  the 
Massachusetts  General  Hospital.  Mr.  Ticknor  was  a  Director  from  1827  to 
1835,  Vice-President  from  1841  tp  1862,  and  wrote  an  important  Annual  Re 
port  in  1857.  He  was  a  Trustee  of  the  Massachusetts  General  Hospital  —  no 
sinecure — from  1826  to  1830.  His  connection  with  the  Athenaeum  and  the 
Primary  School  Board  have  been  mentioned.  In  1821  he  became  a  member 
of  the  corporation  of  the  Boston  Provident  Institution  for  Savings,  —  the  first 
savings-bank  in  New  England,  in  founding  which  his  father  was  much  concerned, 
—  and  was  a  Trustee  from  1838  to  1850.  In  1831  he  became  a  member  of  the 
Massachusetts  Congregational  Charitable  Society,  whose  funds  go  to  support 
widows  and  children  of  deceased  clergymen,  of  various  sects,  mostly,  of  course, 
Orthodox  or  Evangelical.  In  this  he  labored  actively,  was  Treasurer  from 
1831  to  1835,  and  in  1841  -  42  ;  Vice-President,  1861  -  64  ;  Chairman  of  Commit 
tee  on  Appropriations  for  several  years,  and  placed  on  almost  all  committees 
charged  with  important  duties.  He  resigned  from  it  entirely  in  1864.  He  was 
Treasurer,  for  two  or  three  years,  of  the  Farm  School  for  Boys,  which  his  father 
had  wished  to  see  founded. 


380  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR. 

troubled  me,  has  been  my  Memoir  of  Haven I  have  written 

a  plain  and  simple  memoir  of  his  life  and  character,  in  which  my 
main  object  has  been  to  show  how  he  made  himself  so  important  to 
the  best  interests  of  his  friends  and  society.  Whether  I  have  suc 
ceeded  or  not,  I  wish  you  were  here  to  tell  me There  are  not 

many  persons  who  feel  about  the  memory  of  our  friend  as  you  and  I 
do,  and  therefore  it  was  necessary  for  me  to  avoid  all  exaggeration, 
while,  on  the  other  hand,  his  character  was  a  truly  valuable  and 
instructive  one,  whose  influence  should  not  be  lost  from  a  fear  of 
being  accused  of  partiality.  If  I  have  hit  the  medium,  and  not  only 
so  represented  him  that  it  will  be  felt  what  he  was,  but  what,  if  God 
had  spared  his  life,  he  would  have  been,  I  shall  be  satisfied 

Now  and  then  I  get  a  new  book  from  England  or  from  the  Conti 
nent  ;  but  the  embarrassments  of  the  world  and  the  troubles  about 
money  —  which  Lafontaine  thought  was  chose  pen  necessaire  —  have 
been  felt  even  in  the  marts  of  literature.  There  were  never  so  few 
books  printed  in  one  season,  within  the  memory  of  man,  as  the  last, 
both  at  London  and  Paris.  "  The  Subaltern,"  written  by  Rev.  Mr. 
Gleig,  is  a  curious  book,  worth  your  reading  ;  so  is  John  Bell's  frag 
ment  about  Italy  ;  but  Head's  "Rough  Sketches  "*  is  really  one  of  the 
most  spirited  affairs  I  have  looked  into  for  a  great  while 

Mr.  Livingston  sent  me  the  two  folios  of  his  Code,  and  Chancellor 
Kent  sent  me  his  Commentaries,  or  I  suppose  I  should  not  have 
ventured  into  them  ;  but  being  obliged  to  do  enough  to  make  appro 
priate  acknowledgments,  I  read  the  whole,  and  was  much  interested 
and  edified. 

I  received,  the  other  day,  a  package  of  books  and  manuscripts 
from  Everett,  in  Spain.t  Among  the  rest,  the  work  about  Colum 
bus,  which  is  very  curious,  and  ought  to  be  translated  bodily,  as  well 
as  melted  down,  by  Irving,  into  an  interesting  and  elegant  piece  of 
biography 

In  April,  1828,  Mr.  Ticknor  -went  with  his  friend  Prescott  to 
Washington,  being  absent  from  home  about  three  weeks,  during 
which  he  very  much  enjoyed  the  society  of  his  companion,  and 
that  of  Mr.  Webster,  with  whom  they  spent  nearly  all  their  time 
in  Washington.  He  also  saw  many  other  friends  and  interesting 

*  "Rough  Notes  made  during  Journeys  across  the  Pampas,"  etc.,  by  Cap 
tain  [afterwards  Sir]  Francis  B.  Head. 
t  Alexander  H.  Everett,  United  States  Minister  to  Spain. 


M.  36.]  VISIT  TO  WASHINGTON.  381 

persons,  who  are  mentioned  in  his  letters  to  Mrs.  Ticknor.  For 
instance  :  — 

Last  evening  we  went  to  Mr.  Clay's.  He  looks  miserably,  and 
almost,  I  might  say,  miserable ;  care-worn,  wrinkled,  haggard,  and 
wearing  out.  He  was  very  pleasant,  and  asked  much  after  you  ; 
talked  about  general  matters  as  much  as  he  could,  but  still  constantly 
came  back  to  politics. 

From  Mr.  Clay's  we  went  to  Mr.  Vaughan's,  who  showed  more 

pleasure  at  seeing  me  than  I  thought  he  would Mr.  Webster 

and  he  seemed  quite  familiar,  and  we  all  dine  with  him  to-day  at  five 
o'clock,  without  ceremony  or  company  ;  and  on  Wednesday,  which  is 
the  fete  of  St.  George,  the  titular  saint  of  the  King  of  England,  we 
dine  there  again  in  great  ceremony,  with  all  the  heads  of  Departments, 
the  foreign  ministers,  their  attaches,  etc. 

April  22. —  First  this  morning  I  took  Sally  S.  in  a  coach  and 
went  to  Georgetown,  to  the  convent,  where  I.  W.  lives,  to  give  her  a 
parcel  from  her  father.  She  is  a  nice  round  lively  little  girl ;  and  the 
whole  air  of  the  convent,  and  seeing  I.  through  the  grating,  interested 
and  amused  S.  so  much  that  I  was  very  glad  I  took  her. 

On  our  return  I  went  to  the  House  and  Senate,  where  we  passed 
the  forenoon  in  hearing  debates,  and  witnessing  the  passage  of  the 
tariff,  which  went  by  a  majority  of  eleven  in  the  House,  and  was  fol 
lowed  by  a  short  abusive  speech  from  John  Randolph. 

I  dined  at  a  mess,  called  "  Fort  Jackson,"  with  Tazewell,  Governor 

Dickerson,  Woodbury,  Verplanck,  Calhoun,  Polk,  etc I  was 

quite  happy  and  gay  an  hour  or  two  with  Mr.  Webster,  Mr.  Gorham, 
etc.,  after  dinner  [at  Mr.  Sullivan's  lodgings],  and  I  was  somewhat 
excited  by  John  Randolph  in  the  House ;  but  in  the  main  I  was  rather 
dreary  and  homesick. 

April  25.  —  Yesterday  we  had  quite  a  pleasant  time  at  Menou's.* 
He  has  bought  a  small  cottage,  and  after  nearly  rebuilding  it  and 
fitting  it  altogether  in  French  style,  he  has  made  it  a  pretty  little 
snug  place  for  a  bachelor.  Mr.  Webster  dined  there,  General  Van 
Rensselaer,  M.  de  St.  Andre,  Prince  Lieven,  my  old  classmate  Hunt.t 
Judge  Johnstone,  and  General  Stewart  of  Baltimore.  We  had  a  nice 
little  dinner  in  the  library,  and  a  nice  little  time  altogether.  After 
wards  William  and  I  spent  an  hour  with  General  Van  Rensselaer,  at 
the  Livingstons^  very  gayly. 

*  French  Minister. 

t  See  ante,  p.  7. 

J  Mr.  Edward  Livingston  and  his  family.    See  ante,  pp.  350,  351. 


382  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1828. 

All  Washington  looks  rather  triste  to  me.  The  divisions  of  party 

have  infected  social  intercourse The  whole  thing  is  much  less 

gay  and  amusing  than  it  was  when  we  were  here  together.  I  have 
been  very  happy  in  my  visit  to  Mr.  Webster,  who  has  been  very  kind 
and  confidential  with  me.  I  am  glad  to  have  seen  Mr.  Vaughan,  and 
to  have  found  him  so  pleasant.  I  am  glad  to  have  seen  Count 
Menou,  the  Livingstons,  and  so  on  ;  but  I  am  glad  it  is  over,  and  that 
we  are  going  to  set  our  faces  towards  you  and  dear  Nanny. 

Sunday  Morning.  —  A  little  homesick  again,  when  I  think  of  you 
going  to  church,  and  Nanny  standing  at  the  window  to  see  the 
crowds  pass,  my  little  class  of  boys,  and  Mr.  Channing's  sermon. 


M.  37.]  HABITS  AND  HEALTH.  383 


CHAPTEE    XX. 

Habits.  —  House  in  Park  Street.  —  Hospitality.  —  Review  of  Webster's 
Works.  —  Lecture  on  Teaching  the  Living  Languages.  —  Studies  of 
Milton,  Dante,  and  Shakespeare.  —  P'Mic  Lectures  on  Shakespeare.  — 
Death  of  an  infant  Daughter  and  of  an  only  Son.  —  Resignation  of 
Professorship.  —  Departure  for  Europe. 

THE  next  years  formed  a  very  happy  period  in  Mr.  Tick- 
nor's  happy  life;  for,  though  checkered  like  all  human 
lives  with  some  sorrows,  even  with  some  acute  and  lasting  griefs, 
his  was,  in  the  main,  a  remarkably  happy  life.  Many  elements 
of  character  and  fortune  combined  to  give  a  serene,  well-balanced 
tone  of  animated  contentment  to  his  whole  existence  from  youth 
to  age.  Ho  had  a  resolute  nature  and  an  efficient  intellect ;  he 
had,  also,  a  deep-seated  principle  of  industry,  with  a  sense  of  the 
worth  of  occupation  as  a  source  of  pleasure. 

In  relation  to  his  fixed  habit  of  industry  he  used  often  to 
quote  with  delight  what  was  once  said  to  him  by  Judge  Pres- 
cott,  his  friend,  and  the  father  of  his  friend.  Soon  after  his 
return  from  Europe,  in  1819,  he  was  talking  one  evening  with 
Judge  Prescott,  and  said  of  his  own  prospects,  that  he  had 
enough  work  mapped  out  to  fill  at  least  ten  years.  "  Take  care 
always  to  be  able  to  say  the  same  thing ;  always  have  ten  years' 
work  laid  out  before  you,  if  you  wish  to  be  happy,"  was  the 
wise  reply ;  and  in  repeating  it  Mr.  Ticknor  used  to  add,  that 
he  believed  he  had  never  failed  in  fulfilling  the  injunction. 

Of  his  health,  which  was,  inevitably,  an  important  element  in 
the  estimate  of  his  opportunities  and  enjoyments,  it  need  only 
be  said,  that  his  life  in  Europe  seemed  to  have  entirely  changed 
him  from  a  delicate  youth  to  a  strong  and  uniformly  healthy 
man.  From  that  time  until  his  death  —  in  spite  of  his  usually 
sedentary  occupations  —  he  was  habitually  well ;  and  his  eye- 


384  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1827. 

sight,  a  matter  of  vast  consequence  to  one  of  his  tastes,  was  mar 
vellously  strong  to  the  last.  The  one  severe  illness  of  his  man 
hood  was  the  result  of  an  over-exertion,  in  the  winter  of 
1828  —  29.  He  describes  this,  himself,  as  "an  illness  which, 
though  no  great  things  in  itself,  was  a  serious  matter  to  me, 
because  it  was  the  first  time  I  was  ever  seriously  unwell.  I  was 
confined  strictly  to  my  bed  for  a  week,  and  to  the  house  some 
thing  less  than  a  month."  Making  light,  also,  of  the  cause  of  it, 
he  says,  "  My  complaint  was  in  my  side  :  a  swelling  that  came 
suddenly,  in  consequence  of  exposure  at  the  Hospital,  when  it 
was  on  fire.  The  scene  was  very  distressing,  the  sick  people 
fearing  they  should  be  burned  ah"  ve ;  and,  as  one  of  the  Trustees, 
I  went  round  among  them,  reassuring  them  as  much  as  I  could, 
and  so  got  wet  and  caught  a  cold."  *  He  actually  did  more  than 
this,  for  he  helped  in  moving  the  patients,  and  undoubtedly 
strained  himself.  One  thing,  however,  always  amused  him  in 
connection  with  this  illness.  The  nature  of  it  was  peculiar 
enough,  and  obscure  enough,  to  cause  an  account  of  it  to  be 
printed  —  without  names  —  in  a  medical  journal.  Mr.  Ticknor 
showed  this  one  day  to  a  distinguished  medical  man  from  another 
city,  and  when  he  had  read  it,  asked  him  what  he  thought  ailed 
the  patient  in  that  case.  The  answer  was,  "  I  don't  know,  and 
I  don't  believe  the  attending  physicians  knew  either." 

From  the  time  when  he  formed  a  home  of  his  own,  Mr.  Tick 
nor  studied  to  make  it  a  centre  of  comfort  and  improvement  to 
all  its  members ;  and  the  warm  and  faithful  feelings  which  his 
friendships  proved  were  shown  in  their  greatest  strength  in  his 
own  family.  During  several  years  when  his  wife  was  in  a  sen 
sitive  and  prostrated  state  of  health,  and  during  her  severe  ill 
nesses,  his  devotion  to  her  comfort,  his  ingenuity  and  patience 
in  ministering  to  the  needs  of  mind  and  body,  showed  that  his 
tact  and  tenderness  were  not  quenched  by  study;  while  his 
watchful  and  close  personal  attention  to  the  education  of  his 
eldest  daughter  proved  his  ability  to  keep  every  added  duty  in 
its  true  proportion. 

*  The  floor  of  the  ward  where  he  worked  was  covered  by  several  inches  of 
water. 


&  36.]  LIFE  IN  SUMMER.  385 

Some  idea  has  already  been  given  of  the  variety  of  his  occu 
pations;  his  College  duties,  his  zealous  participation  in  the 
charitable  and  intellectual  movements  of  a  very  active  city, 
his  social  interests,  making  a  numerous  amount  of  recognized 
claims.  To  these  must  be  added,  to  complete  the  picture  of  the 
next  coming  years,  the  remembrance  of  hours  spent  in  reading 
aloud,  by  his  wife's  sofa,  such  selections  of  English  literature  as 
might  enliven  her  and  instruct  the  child ;  and  of  other  hours 
given  to  direct  instruction  and  to  vigilant  supervision  of  all  the 
daughter's  studies.  Without  eminently  methodical  and  punctual 
habits,  such  multiplied  objects  could  not  have  been  pursued  with 
success,  nor  even  without  confusion  and  weariness.* 

In  summer  he  always  sought  a  change  of  scene  and  habits, 
lie  maintained  that  one  permanent  establishment  was  enough, 
and  that  for  a  part  of  every  year  it  was  best  to  be  free  to  seek 
new  regions,  another  climate  and  another  mode  of  life ;  he  there 
fore  never  owned  a  country-house.  Before  1840  it  was  much 
less  the  habit  of  the  wealthy  citizens  of  Boston  to  leave  home  in 
the  summer,  than  it  has  since  become ;  indeed,  it  was  common 
enough  to  stay  the  whole  year  in  town.  Mr.  Ticknor,  however, 
always  made  excursions  and  journeys  with  his  family,  or  took 
lodgings  for  a  few  weeks  in  some  pretty  spot  in  the  neighbor 
hood  of  Boston,  —  in  Watertown,  Brookline,  or  Nahant.  Often 
they  went  to  Portland  and  Gardiner;  to  Pepperell,  the  rural 
home  of  the  Prescotts ;  to  Round  Hill,  near  Northampton,  where 
Mr.  Cogswell  and  Mr.  Bancroft  had  opened  a  school ;  or  to  Han 
over,  where  for  some  years  there  were  still  accounts  to  settle 
about  the  family  property,  with  the  old  Quaker  agent,  Friend 
Williams.t 

*  Among  his  methodical  habits  was  that  of  keeping  copies,  or  rough  drafts, 
of  his  business  letters,  and  even  of  some  of  the  more  important  ones  on  other 
subjects.  In  consequence  of  this  practice,  some  interesting  letters  which  had 
not  been  preserved,  or  had  not  been  obtained  from  his  correspondents,  have 
been  available  for  these  volumes.  His  punctuality  was,  so  to  speak,  invariable ; 
and  he  was  fond  of  repeating  an  axiom  on  the  subject :  "Punctuality  is  the  only 
virtue  for  which  its  possessor  is  uniformly  punished." 

=  t  One  of  the  farms  which  he  inherited  in  New  Hampshire  was  sold  jn 
1825,  and  the  rest  of  the  property  at  Hanover  was  finally  disposed  of  in 
1830. 

VOL.  I.  17  Y 


386  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1828. 

In  the  summer  of  1827  a  journey  to  Niagara  ended  by  visits 
on  the  Hudson,  and  is  thus  sketched  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Daveis : — 

Of  these  journeyings  you  are  already  partly  misinformed,  and, 
as  Nic  Bottom  would  say,  I  will  finish  that  matter  myself.  We 
have  —  as  you  heard  —  heen  to  the  Westward,  hut  eschewed  the 
Springs,*  not  desiring  fashion,  hut  health.  We  had  several  hright 
spots  in  our  journey  :  first,  West  Point,  where  my  old  friend 
Thayer's  gallantry  gave  the  ladies  a  beautiful  entertainment ;  then 
Trenton  Falls,  more  beautiful  than  those  of  Tivoli  and  Terni ; 
then  Mr.  Wadsworth's  magnificent  establishment,  where  we  passed 
two  days  ;  then  Niagara  itself,  where  we  spent  four  days  in  con 
stantly  increasing  delight  and  astonishment  ;  then,  on  our  return, 
Kaatskill, where,  as  Natty  Bumpo  says,  "you  see  all  creation";  then 
Governor  Lewis's,  on  the  North  River,  where  we  spent  four  days  with 
the  Livingston  family,  and  one  with  Mrs.  Montgomery,  the  widow 
of  him  who  fell  before  Quebec  ;  and  finally  Northampton.  This  is 
the  general  plan  of  our  journey,  which  occupied  six  full  weeks  very 
pleasantly,  ....  and,  all  things  considered,  I  hardly  know  when  I 
have  passed  the  same  length  of  time  more  to  my  mind. 

In  the  following  summer,  that  of  1828,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Ticknor 
made  a  trip  to  Quebec.  This  was  succeeded  by  an  excursion  to 
Sandwich,  on  Cape  Cod,  with  Mr.  Webster,  who  found  much 
comfort  in  their  society  at  this  time,  saddened  as  he  was  by  the 
recent  death  of  his  wife,  to  whom  Mrs.  Ticknor  had  been  much 
attached;  while  Mr.  Ticknor's  friendship  for  him  was  full  of 
sympathy.  During  this  visit  the  following  hasty  letter  went  to 
Mr.  Prescott :  — 

MY  DEAR  WILLIAM,  —  Mr.  Webster  has  been  out  shooting  all  day, 
and  brought  home  a  fine  quantity  of  beetle-heads,  curlews,  and  other 
things  whose  names  I  do  not  remember,  but  which  I  doubt  not  are 
very  savory.  He  has  placed  a  part  of  them  at  my  disposal,  and,  as 
I  do  not  know  anybody  to  whose  recollection  I  wish  to  be  agreeably 
recalled  more  than  to  that  of  your  household,  I  have  made  up  a  little 
box  for  you.  It  wall  come  just  in  season  for  your  Saturday's  dinner, 
and  I  wish  I  were  with  you,  though  it  is  cool,  quiet,  and  comfortable 
here.  .... 

A.  Thorndike  and  his  household  came  to-day.    He  brings  two  dogs, 

*  Saratoga. 


M.  37.]  A  NEW  HOME.  387 

and  an  apparatus  for  shooting,  ample  enough  to  lay  waste  the  Cape 
from  here  to  Race  Point,  let  alone  a  quantity  of  rods,  water-proof 
breeches,  and  trout-destroying  hooks.  I  have  been  out  myself  sev 
eral  times,  with  that  notorious  personage  John  Trout,*  and,  though  I 
cannot  make  up  my  mind  to  wade  the  brooks  and  the  marshes  as 
deeply  as  he  does,  I  have  had  some  luck.t 

But  Mr.  Webster  is  a  true  sportsman.  He  was  out  thirteen  hours 
to-day,  without  any  regular  meal,  and  is  now  as  busy  as  a  locksmith, 
with  his  guns.  He  seems  to  feel  as  if  it  were  the  one  thing  needful 
to  kill  birds,  and  neither  to  tire  nor  grow  hungry  while  one  can  be 
seen.  It  has  already  made  him  look  bright  and  strong  again,  for  he 
came  from  Nantucket  in  but  a  poor  condition. 

But  my  note  is  called  for,  to  be  packed  with  the  birds.  Good  night. 
We  shall  come  home  with  the  first  cool  weather.  Love  to  Susan, 

Yours  always,  G.  T. 

From  his  marriage  until  this  time  Mr.  Ticknor  had  dwelt  in 
hired  houses.  Now,  however,  in  1829,  he  found  what  he  had 
so  long  been  waiting  to  find,  a  house  which  he  was  satisfied  to 
huy,  and  there  he  made  his  home  for  the  remaining  forty-one 
and  a  half  years  of  his  life.  The  situation,  the  proportions  and 
taste,  and  the  ample  size  of  this  residence,  sufficed  for  all  the 
needs  of  domestic  and  social  hours ;  and  here,  in  joy  and  in  sor 
row,  from  far-off  lands  and  from  the  inner  recesses  of  heart  and 
mind,  was  gathered  "  treasure  of  things  new  and  old." 

The  homes  of  almost  all  his  friends,  and  his  own  dwelling- 
places,  —  since  his  return  from  Europe,  —  looked  on  the  little 
park  of  forty-five  acres,  which,  in  spite  of  the  seeming  modesty 
of  its  traditional  name,  the  Common,  has  always  heen  the 
pride  and  joy  of  the  Boston  heart.  His  new  house  stood  at  the 
most  attractive  point  of  the  margin  of  the  Common,  at  the  top 
of  the  slope  looking  down  the  avenue  of  elms  of  the  finest  of 
its  malls,  and  facing  to  the  southwest,  so  as  to  catch  the  pre- 

*  "That  well-known  angler,  John  Denison,  usually  called  John  Trout." — 
Curtis's  Life  of  Webster,  Vol.  I.  p.  251. 

t  Mr.  Ticknor  often  expressed  some  regret  that  he  had  never  found  pleasure 
in  fishing  or  shooting,  nor  in  billiards,  for  he  considered  the  variety  of  exercise 
thus  gained  to  be  very  desirable  for  a  student.  He  never  liked  riding,  after  his 
training  for  health  at  the  riding-school  in  Gdttingen  —  which,  however,  made 
him  a  good  rider  —  and  his  long  journeys  in  Spain. 


388  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1829.- 

vailing  summer  wind,  and  rejoice  in  the  glory  of  the  winter  sun 
sets.  The  central  point  of  the  house,  henceforward,  was  the 
large,  sunny  room,  with  three  long  balconied  windows,  where, 
at  once,  and  without  hesitation,  his  valuable  and  increasing  col 
lection  of  books  was  established. 

Trusting  to  simple  lines,  just  proportions,  and  harmony  of 
subdued  colors  in  furnishing  this  library,  Mr.  Ticknor  succeeded 
in  producing  the  effect  he  sought,  of  a  dignified,  cheerful  home 
for  himself  and  his  books.  When  his  friend  Allston,  the  artist, 
—  a  man  of  fastidious  taste  and  an  acute  sense  of  harmony  of 
color,  —  first  entered  the  room,  he  expressed  the  most  unlimited 
approval. 

Ten  years  later,  on  receiving  a  description  of  this  room,  —  for 
which  she  had  asked,  —  Miss  Edgeworth  wrote  in  her  animated 
and  sympathetic  manner  :  — 

Who  talks  of  Boston  in  a  voice  so  sweet  1  Who  wishes  to  see  me 
there  ?  to  show  me  their  home,  their  family,  their  country  ?  I  have 
been  there,  ....  have  sate  in  the  library  too,  and  thought,  and 
thought  it  all  charming  !  Looking  into  the  country,  as  you  know 
the  windows  all  do,  I  saw  down  through  the  vista  of  trees  to  the 
quiet  bay,  and  the  beautiful  hills  beyond,  and  I  watched  the  glories 
of  the  setting  sun,  lighting  up  country  and  town,  .... 

I  met  Sir  Walter  Scott  in  Mr.  Ticknor's  library,  with  all  his  be 
nign,  calm  expression  of  countenance,  his  eye  of  genius,  and  his 
mouth  of  humor,  such  as  he  was  before  the  life  of  life  was  gone, 
such  as  genius  loved  to  see  him,  such  as  American  genius  has  given 
him  to  American  friendship,  immortalized  in  person,  as  in  mind. 
His  very  self  I  see,  feeling,  thinking,  and  about  to  speak,  and  to  a 
friend  to  whom  he  loved  to  speak ;  and  well  placed,  and  to  his  liking, 
he  seems  in  this  congenial  library,  presiding  and  sympathizing. 

But,  my  dear  madam,  ten  thousand  books,  about  ten  thousand 
books,  do  you  say  this  library  contains?  My  dear  Mrs.  Ticknor! 
Then  I  am  afraid  you  must  have  double  rows,  and  that  is  a  plague. 
.  .  .  .  Your  library  is  thirty-four  by  twenty-two,  you  say.  But,  to 
be  sure,  you  have  not  given  me  the  height,  and  that  height  may  make 
out  room  enough.  Pray  have  it  measured  for  me,  that  I  may  drive 
this  odious  notion  of  double  rows  out  of  my  head. 

The  portrait  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  to  which  Miss  Edgeworth 


M.  38.]  PORTRAIT  OP  SIR  WALTER  SGOTT.  389 

refers, — the  only  painting  in  the  room,  —  is  an  original,  by 
Leslie,  hanging  over  the  fireplace.  Mr.  Ticknor.  wrote  to  Sir 
Walter  in  1824,  asking  him  to  sit  for  his  likeness,  but  leaving 
the  choice  of  the  artist  to  him.  In  reply  to  this  request,  Sir 
Walter,  with  a  tact  and  amiability  very  characteristic  of  him, 
selected  the  young  American  painter,  then  making  himself 
known  in  England,  and  invited  him  to  Abbotsford.  Mr.  Leslie 
-has  recorded  the  experiences  of  his  delightful  visit  to  the  Wizard 
of  the  North,  in  his  "Autobiographical  Eecollections."  *  He 
says,  "In  the  autumn  of  1824  I  visited  Scotland  for  the  purpose 
of  painting  a  portrait  of  Sir  Walter  Scott,  for  Mr.  Ticknor  of 
Boston";  and, — quoting  one  of  his  own  letters  written  at  the 
time,  —  "  Imagine  how  delightful  these  sittings  are  to  me." 
Again,  "  There  was  more  benevolence  expressed  in  Scott's  face 
than  is  .given  in  any  portrait  of  him;  and  I  am  sure  there  was 
much  in  his  heart."  This  benevolence  Leslie  has  made  very 
obvious  in  his  painting,  while  the  intellect  and  the  humor 
belonging  there  are  not  lost  from  sight.  Sir  Walter  wished  him 
to  introduce  one  of  his  dogs  into  the  picture,  but  after  one  or 
two  experiments  Leslie  wisely  decided  against  it.t 

Before  leaving  the  siibject  of  Mr.  Ticknor's  home  we  will  give 
one  more  short  description, — from  the  pen  of  Hawthorne,— 
which  includes  a  sketch  of  Mr.  Ticknor  himself,  as  he  appeared, 
at  a  later  period,  it  is  true,  but  before  any  marked  change  had 
come  over  his  looks  or  bearing.  J 

Mr.  Folsom  accompanied  me  to  call  upon  Mr.  Ticknor,  the  his 
torian  of  Spanish  literature.  He  has  a  fine  house  at  the  corner  of 
Park  and  Beacon  Streets,  perhaps  the  very  best  position  in  Boston. 
A  marble  hall,  a  wide  and  easy  staircase,  a  respectable  old  man 
servant,  evidently  long  at  home  in  the  mansion,  to  admit  us.  §  We 

*  "Autobiographical  Recollections  of  C.  R.  Leslie."  Edited  by  Tom  Taylor, 
1860. 

t  This  portrait  is  mentioned  by  Lockhart ;  and  Mrs.  Lockhart's  opinion  of 
it  —  given  to  Mr.  Ticknor  in  1835  —  'Mil  be  found  in  its  place. 

J  "American  Note-Books." 

§  John  Lynch,  having  been  honored  by  this  notice,  deserves  a  few  more 
words.  He  had,  indeed,  been  long  in  Mr.  Ticknor's  service  before  this  visit  in 


390  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1830. 

entered  the  library,  Mr.  Folsom  considerably  in  advance,  as  being 
familiar  with  the  house ;  and  I  heard  Mr.  Ticknor  greet  him  in 
friendly  tones,  their  scholarlike  and  bibliographical  pursuits,  I  sup 
pose,  bringing  them  into  frequent  conjunction.  Then  I  was  intro 
duced,  and  received  with  great  distinction,  but  yet  without  any 
ostentatious  flourish  of  courtesy.  Mr.  Ticknor  has  a  great  head,  and 
Ids  hair  is  gray  or  grayish.  You  recognize  in  him,  at  once,  the  man 
who  knows  the  world,  the  scholar,  too,  which  probably  is  his  more 

distinctive  character,  though  a  little  more  under  the  surface 

His  library  is  a  stately  and  beautiful  room,  for  a  private  dwelling, 

and  itself  looks  large  and  rich Mr.  Ticknor  was  most  kind  in 

his  alacrity  to  solve  the  point  on  which  Mr.  Folsom,  in  my  behalf, 
had  consulted  him,  —  as  to  whether  there  had  been  any  English 
translation  of  the  Tales  of  Cervantes,  —  and  most  liberal  in  his 
offers  of  books  from  his  library.  Certainly  he  is  a  fine  example  of  a 
generous  principled  scholar,  anxious  to  assist  the  human  intellect 

in  its  efforts  and  researches He  is,  I  apprehend,  a  man  of 

great  cultivation  and  refinement,  and  with  quite  substance  enough 
to  be  polished  and  refined  without  being  worn  too  thin  in  the  process, 
a  man  of  society. 

Mr.  Ticknor's  hospitable  tastes  and  social  habits  made  his 
house  the  constant  scene  of  a  friendly  and  intellectual  life.  At 
this  time  — 1826  -35  —  a  supper  at  nine  o'clock  in  the  evening 
naturally  followed  the  early  three-o'clock  dinner  then  customary, 
and  such  suppers,  served  in  his  house  with  much  simplicity, 
attracted  the  gentlemen  of  his  intimate  circle,  who  dropped  in 
uninvited,  especially  on  Sunday  evenings  ;  and  conversation  full 
of  vivacity  and  variety  drew  out  the  best  powers  of  each  on  these 
occasions. 

1850.  In  June,  1829,  Mr.  Daveis's  kind  offices  are  asked  for  "my  good  servant, 
John  Lynch,"  who  was  sent  to  Portland  for  a  few  days,  for  his  health.  His 
periods  of  actual  service  in  Mr.  Ticknor's  family  amounted  to  twenty  years. 
While  they  were  in  Europe  — 1835-38  — John  fell  into  intemperate  habits, 
and  on  their  return  could  not,  at  first,  be  taken  back ;  but  one  day  he  was 
summoned  and  asked  by  Mr.  Ticknor  if  he  would  take  the  place  again  under 
the  condition  of  a  promise  never  to  touch  a  drop  of  intoxicating  liquor  again. 
Though  not  quite  sober  at  the  moment,  he  assented ;  but  the  next  words, 
"Then  come  this  very  day,"  sobered  him  instantly,  and  made  him  turn  ashy 
pale  with  agitation.  He  kept  his  word  faithfully,  soon  received  the  key  of  the 
wine-cellar,  and  never  abused  his  trust.  He  continued  in  the  family  till  his 
strength  failed,  and  was  taken  care  of  till  he  died. 


M.  39.]  HOSPITALITY.  391 

Mr.  George  T.  Curtis  says  *  of  the  persons  who  gathered  at 
these  suppers  :  — 

I  recall  the  two  Messrs.  Prescott,  father  and  son ;  Mr.  Webster  ; 
the  Rev.  Dr.  Channing  ;  Dr.  Bowditch,  the  eminent  mathemati 
cian  and  translator  of  La  Place  ;  Dr.  Walter  Channing,  a  kind  and 
genial  family  physician  ;  Mr.  John  Pickering,  a  Greek  scholar  and 
a  learned  lawyer ;  his  brother,  Octavius  Pickering,  the  Reporter 
of  the  Supreme  Court  of  Massachusetts  ;  Mr.  Willard  Phillips  ;  and 
Mr.  James  Savage.  There  were  also  many  younger  men,  habitue's 
of  the  house,  whom  I  cannot  recall.  The  Rev.  Dr.  Channing  came 
seldom,  but  it  was  there  I  first  saw  him,  and  there,  also,  I  first 
saw  Mr.  Webster  in  private.  Prescott,  the  historian,  not  yet  an  au 
thor,  was  at  that  time  in  the  full  flush  of  his  early  manhood,  running 
over  with  animal  spirits,  which  his  studies  and  self-discipline  could 
not  quench  ;  talking  with  a  joyous  abandon,  laughing  at  his  own 
inconsequences,  recovering  himself  gayly,  and  going  on  again  in  a 
graver  strain,  which  soon  gave  way  to  some  new  joke  or  brilliant 
sally.  Wherever  he  came  there  was  always  a  "fillip"  to  the  dis 
course,  be  it  of  books,  or  society,  or  reminiscences  of  foreign  travel, 

or  the  news  of  the  day The  talk  flowed  freely,  and  as  it 

naturally  would  among  cultivated  persons  who  led  busy  lives 

Dinner-parties  were  given  by  Mr.  Ticknor,  for  a  period  of  about 
fifty  years,  very  frequently,  and  oftener,  perhaps,  than  by  most  gen 
tlemen  of  his  standing  in  Boston.  As  a  host  he  was  singularly 
graceful,  and  did  the  honors  in  a  manner  that  showed  what  an 
accomplished  man  he  was.  Good  entertaining,  and  good  hosts  and 
hostesses  can  be  found  in  many  houses,  but  there  was  an  atmosphere 
about  Mr.  Ticknor  that  was  peculiar.  It  was  not  merely  that  his 
house  was  a  house  of  books  and  learning.  The  knowledge  that 
abounded  there  connected  itself  by  many  threads,  not  only  with  the 
past  but  with  the  present.  Whatever  was  happening  at  home  or 
abroad,  the  information  that  is  kept  alive  and  kept  full  by  a  wide 
correspondence,  the  stores  of  anecdote  that  come  from  a  varied  inter 
course  with  distinguished  contemporaries,  the  experiences  of  travel, 
the  interest  that  attaches  to  the  welfare  of  kindred  and  friends  and 
neighborhood  and  country,  all  these  things  were  reflected  in  Mr. 
Ticknor's  conversation  quite  as  much  as  mere  topics  of  literature. 
No  stranger  who  could  command  an  introduction  to  Mr.  Ticknor's 
house  visited  Boston  during  half  a  century,  who  did  not  gladly 

*  In  his  letter  of  reminiscences,  addressed  to  Mr.  Hillard,  already  quoted. 


392  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOE.  [1831. 

avail  himself  of  its  hospitalities  ;  and  no  intelligent  traveller  could 
have  seen  what  was  most  attractive  and  interesting  in  the  society  of 
the  New  England  metropolis,  who  failed  to  enjoy  Mr.  Ticknor's  con 
versation  in  his  own  library  and  at  his  own  table. 

While  Mr.  Ticknor's  conversational  powers  were  extraordinary, 
he  conversed,  and  did  not  discourse.  He  made  conversation  a  fair 
exchange,  and  if  his  guest  had  anything  to  say,  he  was  sure  to  have 
an  opportunity. 

Miss  Edgeworth  wrote,  in  1835,*  to  a  friend  of  Mr.  Ticknor, 
thus : — 

I  have  been  acquainted,  and  I  may  say  intimately,  with  some  of 
the  most  distinguished  literary  persons  in  Great  Britain,  France,  and 
Switzerland,  and  have  seen  and  heard  all  those  distinguished  for 
conversational  talents  ;  Talleyrand,  Dumont,  Mackintosh,  Romilly, 
Dugald  Stewart,  Erskine,  Sir  Walter  Scott,  Sydney  Smith,  and  Mr. 
Sharpe,  the  fashionable  dinner-lions  of  London.  I  have  passed  days 
in  the  countiy-houses  and  in  the  domestic  intimacy  of  some  of  them, 
and  after  all,  I  can,  with  strict  truth,  assure  you,  that  Mr.  Ticknor's 
conversation  appeared  to  me  fully  on  an  equality  with  the  most  ad 
mired,  in  happy,  apposite  readiness  of  recollection  and  application 
of  knowledge,  in  stores  of  anecdote,  and  in  ease  in  producing  them, 
and  in  depth  of  reflection  not  inferior  to  those  whom  we  have  been 
accustomed  to  consider  our  deepest  thinkers.  But  what  interested 
and  attached  us,  was  the  character  of  Mr.  Ticknor,  the  moral  worth 
and  truth  which  we  saw  in  him.  We  feel  that  we  have  made  a  friend 
of  him. 

In  1831  Mr.  Ticknor  wrote,  for  the  "American  Quarterly 
Review,"  t  an  article  on  Mr.  Webster's  works,  of  which  a  vol 
ume  was  then  coming  from  the  press ;  and  when  first  the  idea 
of  doing  so  was  proposed  to  him,  he  wrote  to  Judge  Story  on 
the  subject  as  foDows :  — 

On  thinking  over  the  matter  to-day,  some  hints  and  rudiments 
have  occurred  to  me,  as  well  as  some  doubts  and  queries,  all  of  which 
I  wish  to  lay  before  you. 

First,  then,  taking  Mr.  Webster  from  his  earliest  years,  as  one  who 
has  grown  up  from  the  condition  in  which  society  is,  necessarily,  on 

*  After  a  visit  made  by  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Ticknor  at  Edgeworthtown. 
t  Published  in  Philadelphia,  and  edited  by  his  friend  Robert  Walsh. 


M.  40.]  LECTURE  ON  LIVING  LANGUAGES.  393 

our  frontiers,  he  can  be  shown  as  one  who,  from,  the  whole  course 
of  his  life,  is  continually  connected  with  the  mass  of  the  people, 
their  character,  their  condition  and  hopes,  and  on  whom  they  may 
safely  rely-.  He  is,  in  short,  among  them  and  of  them ;  his  whole 
life  has  thriven  with  their  progress  and  success  ;  his  whole  fortunes 
can  be  advanced  only  by  the  essential  advancement  and  progress 
and  reputation  of  the  country. 

Second,  taking  Mr.  Webster's  public  life  as  a  politician  and  his 
professional  life  as  a  lawyer,  it  can  be  shown  that  he  belongs  to  no 
party  ;  but  that  he  has  uniformly  contended  for  the  great  and  essen 
tial  principles  of  our  government  on  all  occasions. 

I  do  not  propose  to  lay  down  these  two  propositions  and  prove 
them,  but  to  keep  them  constantly  in  mind,  and  let  them  be  the 
inevitable,  but  not  the  formal  result  of  the  article. 

In  the  summer  of  1832  he  delivered  a  lecture,  before  the 
American  Institute,  on  the  best  methods  of  teaching  the  living 
languages,  in  which  he  advocated,  for  children  and  young  peo 
ple,  the  methods  which  are  now,  forty  years  later,  growing 
more  and  more  into  favor.  In  conclusion,  he  maintains  that  the 
direction  to  be  given  to  all  studies  in  a  living  language  is 
towards  speaking  it,  and  if  one  answers,  "We  only  wish  to 
learn  to  read  it,  that  we  may  have  free  access  to  its  written 
treasures,  and  especially  its  classic  authors,"  he  argues  "that 
such  authors  cannot  be  understood  without  some  knowledge  of 
the  popular  feeling  and  colloquial  idiom  with  which  their  minds 
have  been  nourished,  and  of  which  their  works  are  full " ;  add 
ing  illustrations,  and  concluding,  "  We  know  that  we  can  none 
of  us  read  the  great  masters  in  any  foreign  literature,  or  enjoy 
them  like  natives,  because  we  cannot  speak  their  language  like 
natives ;  for  the  characteristic  peculiarities  and  essential  beauty 
and  power  of  their  gifted  minds  are  concealed  in  those  idiomatic 
phrases,  those  unobtrusive  particles,  those  racy  combinations, 
which,  as  they  were  first  produced  by  the  prompt  eloquence  and 
passions  of  immediate  intercourse,  can  be  comprehended  and  felt 
only  by  those  who  seek  them  in  the  sources  from  which  they 
flow  :  so  that,  other  things  being  equal,  he  will  always  be  found 
best  able  to  read  and  enjoy  the  great  writers  in  a  foreign  lan 
guage,  who,  in  studying  it,  —  whether  his  progress  have  been 
17* 


394  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1831. 

little  or  much,  —  has  never  ceased  to  remember  that  it  is  a  living 
and  a  spoken  tongue."  * 

He  mentions  to  Mr.  Daveis  some  other  occupations  of  his 
summer's  holidays,  writing  September  19,  1833:  — 

Among  other  things  I  have  made  a  thorough  study  of  the  works 
of  Milton  and  Shakespeare,  as  nearly  three  hundred  pages  of  notes 
and  memoranda  will  testify.  It  was  delicious.  Last  summer  I  did 
the  same  for  Dante,  working  on  each,  often  twelve  and  fourteen 
hours  a  day,  with  uninterrupted  and  equable  pleasure.  If  I  am  not 
a  better  man  for  it,  —  and  a  happier  one  too,  —  why,  I  shall  have 
misused  my  opportunities  scandalously,  as  many  better  men  have 
done  before  me. 

He  had  already  been  in  the  habit  of  expounding  Dante  to 
special  classes  at  Cambridge,  and  mentions  doing  so,  for  a  section 
of  the  Junior  class,  three  times  a  week  during  the  autumn  of 
1831.  The  studies  of  Shakespeare  had  one  result,  in  a  course 
of  public  lectures  given  in  Boston  in  the  winter  of  1833  —  34. 

As  he  never  kept  a  diary  of  any  kind  when  at  home,  it  is 
necessary  to  gather  from  his  letters  such  extracts  as  may  indi 
cate  the  variety  and  nature  of  his  interests ;  but,  at  this  time, 
even  these  are  not  very  ample  for  the  purpose. 

To  C.  S.  DAVEIS,  PORTLAND. 

August  3,  1831. 

I  do  not  know  how  it  may  be  with  you  in  partibus,  but  politics 
here  are  truly  amusing.  When  I  am  King,  I  am  afraid  it  will  be 
impossible,  even  with  you  for  my  Primarius,  to  keep  tip  half  so 
much  merriment  as  the  present  incumbent,  his  followers,  and  his 
opponents  now  produce,  before  the  astonished  eyes  of  their  country 
men.  However,  I  promise  not  to  give  you  so  much  trouble  as  the 
High  Contracting  Party  now  in  power  gives  his  official  keepers. 
....  I  am  sorry,  too,  that  .the  secretaries  thought  it  necessary  to 
muzzle  him,  when  he  wanted  so  to  roar  about  Berrien's  manifesto  ;  for 
I  think  it  would  have  been  great  sport,  through  all  Athens,  to  have 
seen  him  out  in  a  regular  enactment  of  the  lion,  and  I  have  no  doubt 
he  would  have  been  magnificently  encored,  and  that  they  would  all 
have  shouted,  "  Let  him  roar  again !  Let  him  roar  again  ! " 

*  This  lecture  was  published  in  Boston  in  1833. 


M.  40.]  BOSTON  AND  NEW  ENGLAND.  395 

To  MRS.  R.  H.  GARDINER,  GARDINER,  MAINE. 

BOSTON,  April  13, 1832. 

I  am  sure,  my  dear  Mrs.  Gardiner,  the  kindly  influences  of  this 
beautiful  spring  day  must  reach  to  the  Kennebec.  At  any  rate,  it 
reminds  us  of  your  beautiful  domains,  at  the  same  time  it  inspires 
that  vernal  delight  which  Milton  seems  to  have  placed  above 
every  other,  when  he  says  it  is  "  able  to  drive  all  sadness  but  de 
spair."  .... 

We  have  just  been  taking  a  two-hours'  drive  over  the  hills  of 
Brookline  and  Dorchester,  with  the  chaise-top  down,  and  we  have 
certainly  felt  nothing  like  it  since  the  last  autumn 

Your  remarks  upon  the  little  manuscript  somewhat  surprised  me. 
It  was  prepared  sixteen  or  seventeen  years  ago  at  Gottingen,  and  was, 
of  course,  then  somewhat  less  of  a  fragment  than  it  is  now,  though 
even  then,  I  think,  it  did  not  come  within  nearly  twenty  years  of  the 
"  Spirit  of  the  Times."  However,  like  many  other  sketches,  it  tended 
to  prepare  me  for  understanding  the  world  and  the  age  in  which 
I  live  ;  and  having  fulfilled  this  purpose,  I  have  thought  no  more 
about  it.*  .... 

Since  I  wrote  the  first  part  of  this  letter  the  Masons  t  are  come, 

and  are  established  in  their  own  house  in  Tremont  Street 

The  whole  establishment  is  such  an  one  as  suits  Mr.  Mason's  age  and 
consideration,  and  I  think  the  prospect  of  a  quiet  and  dignified  and 
happy  old  age  is  much  greater  for  him  here  than  it  would  "be  at 
Portsmouth.  It  is  another  proof  out  of  many  that  have  preceded  it, 
how  completely  Boston  is  the  capital  of  a  great  part  of  New  Eng 
land  ;  how  much  more,  I  mean,  than  New  York  is  the  capital  even 
of  its  own  State,  or  Philadelphia  of  Pennsylvania.  This  comes,  no 
doubt,  in  part  from  the  homogeneousness  of  our  character  ;  but  more, 
perhaps,  from  the  great  similarity  of  our  institutions,  which  again 
arise  from  it  and  make  us  more  strictly  one  people,  with  one  common 
centre  and  capital,  than  any  other  equal  amount  of  the  population 
of  the  United  States.  I  always  look  on  this  circumstance  with  great 
satisfaction,  because  I  think  the  connection  is  for  the  benefit  of  both 

*  One  of  the  many  volumes  of  notes  containing  the  results  of  his  studies  at 
Gottingen  (see  p.  86).  This  one  consists  of  over  one  hundred  pages  of  remarks 
on  the  condition  of  Christendom  after  the  French  Revolution,  and  the  causes 
of  the  restlessness  and  desire  for  change  which  characterize  the  period. 

t  The  family  of  Mr.  Jeremiah  Mason,  the  eminent  lawyer  of  Portsmouth. 
See  ante,  p.  123. 


396  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1834. 

parties,  arid  the  improvement  of  the  whole.  To  be  sure,  we  take  a 
great  deal  when  we  attract  such  men  as  Mr.  Cabot,  Judge  Parsons, 
Mr.  Webster,  and  Mr.  Mason  ;  but  we  are  constantly  sending  out 
influences  greater  and  more  beneficial,  I  believe,  than  any  other 
capital  in  the  country  ;  and  influences,  too,  which  we  could  never  put 
forth,  if  we  could  not  concentrate  and  combine  such  powers  in  the 
midst  of  us,  and  render  them  much  more  active  and  efficient  than 
they  could  be  scattered  through  the  land  in  their  native  homes. 

We  are  all  well,  though  little  Nannie  shows  some  feebleness  at  the 
approach  of  spring,  which  I  impute,  in  part,  to  the  severe  illness  of 
the  last  summer.  The  little  boy  is  excellently  thriving 

To  C.  S.  DAVEIS,  PORTLAND. 

BOSTON,  January  26,  1834. 

Mrs.  T.  has  not  been  so  well  or  so  strong  for  six  or  eight  years, 
perhaps  never  before ;  and,  except  colds,  the  children  have  been 
well ;  in  consequence  of  which  I  suppose  we  have  had,  thus  far,  the 
merriest  winter  we  have  had  since  we  were  married.  I  have  just 
finished  a  course  of  twelve  lectures  on  Shakespeare,  which  have  gone 
off  well  enough.  Mrs.  T.  has  set  up  an  opposition  line  of  soirees 
every  Thursday,  which  quite  distances  my  humble  Sunday  Evening 
concerns,  without,  however,  putting  them  down  ;  and  next  Thursday 
she  has  invited  a  moderate  fraction  of  her  dear  five  hundred  friends 
to  come  and  dance  it  out  with  her.  This,  I  think,  would  seem 
enough  to  any  reasonable  person  ;  but  on  the  intervening  evenings 
we  have  generally  been  to  some  sort  of  a  party,  from  a  seven-o'clock 
sociable  to  a  ball  which  does  not  begin  till  ten  ;  and  the  daytimes 
are  spent  in  listening  to  Miss  Walsh,*  who  keeps  us  in  an  atmos 
phere  of  melody  during  most  of  the  hours  we  are  awake.  The  long 
and  the  short  of  the  matter  is,  that  if  you  were  here  you  would  not 
know  us  for  the  humdrum  people  that  have  heretofore  lived  in  Park 
Street  and  Tremont  Street,  except  that  you  would  find  us  just  as 
glad  to  see  you  as  ever. 

In  the  summer  of  1825  a  sorrow  had  come  to  him,  of  a  kind 
he  had  not  felt  before,  through  the  death  of  his  second  little 
daughter,  only  a  few  weeks  old.  He  refers  to  it  thus  in  a  letter 
to  his  friend  Daveis  :  — 

.  . '*  Miss  Anna  Walsh,  second  daughter  of  Mr.  Robert  Walsh,  a  charming 
singer,  who  passed  the  winter  with  Mrs.  Ticknor. 


M.  42.]  .     ILLNESS  OF   HIS  SON.  397 

July  19,  1825. 
Sorrow  has  come  close  upon  gladness  with  us.     God  has  taken 

away  from  our  hopes  the  little  daughter  he  had  just  given  us It 

is  a  great  disappointment  ;  much  greater  than  I  had  thought  it  could 
be.  I  did  not  think  so  many  hopes  could  so  soon  have  gathered  and 
rested  on  one  so  young  and  frail.  But  the  imagination  is  as  busy  as 
the  memory  ;  and  though  there  may  be  fewer  recollections  treasured 
up  for  future  regrets,  there  is  enough  of  defeated  hope  to  make  much 
present  sorrow.  But  God's  will  be  done 

Time  softened  this  disappointment,  and  in  1829  his  cup  of  joy 
seemed  tilled,  by  the  birth  of  a  son ;  while  the  arrival,  four  years 
later,  of  another  daughter,  made  his  home  the  scene  of  many 
deep  and  simple  delights.  Sickness  eanie  to  one  and  another 
from  time  to  time,  there  were  periods  of  anxiety,  but  the  seasons 
of  content,  thus  far,  outnumbered  them. 

The  gay  picture  sketched  in  the  letter  to  Mr.  Daveis  in  the 
beginning  of  1834  was,  however,  soon  clouded  and  shut  from 
sight  by  the  shadow  of  a  great  calamity.  In  the  following  sum 
mer  a  fatal  illness  seized  his  little  boy,  his  only  son,  then  five 
years  old,  who  had  filled  his  home  with  such  life  and  gladness, 
and  was  the  bright  centre  of  so  many  hopes. 

The  illness  of  the  child  lasted  five  weeks,  and  in  the  course  of 
it  we  have  the  following  note  from  Mr.  Ticknor  to  his  eldest 
daughter,  then  eleven  years  old,  who  had  been  left  in  the  coun 
try,  which  contains  a  simple  expression  of  his  anxiety  and 
trouble  :  — 

MY  VERT  DEAR  DAUGHTER,  —  Georclie  is  a  good  deal  more  unwell, 
and  so  I  shall  not  see  you  to-night.  Perhaps,  too,  if  he  should  not 
grow  better,  I  may  not  go  out  to-morrow.  But  you  must  be  a  good 
girl,  and  keep  yourself  occupied  about  something  pleasant  and  useful, 
until  you  have  somebody  to  help  you  in  your  regular  occupations. 

Your  mother  is  well,  and  sends  you  a  great  deal  of  her  love  ;  but 
she  is  somewhat  worn  by  her  want  of  rest,  and  will  not,  I  fear,  be  able 
much  longer  to  do  as  much  as  she  has  lately.  Geordie  is  very  good 
and  gentle,  but  he  suffers  a  great  deal  of  pain,  and  is  obliged  to  take 
many  grievous  remedies.  He  is  a  sweet  little  fellow,  and  I  pray  God 
to  permit  him  to  continue  with  us  ;  but  this  morning  I  was  very  much 
afraid,  and  I  am  not  now  without  anxiety.  In  a  few  years  you  will 


LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1834. 

be  able  to  help  us  in  such  sicknesses,  and  that  will  be  a  great  comfort 
to  you. 

Give  my  love  to  Anna  Dwight,  and  tell  her  all  at  her  home  are 
well ;  kiss  the  baby  for  me,  and  write  me  a  note  by  the  morning  stage, 
telling  me  all  about  yourself,  and  how  the  baby  does. 
t     Yr.  affectionate  father, 

1  o'clock,  Friday.  GEO.  TICKNOR. 

The  little  boy  died  on  the  4th  of  August.  The  blow  fell 
heavily,  crushing  for  a  time  the  hearts  of  both  parents.  A  few 
weeks  after  this  bereavement  Mr.  Ticknor  wrote  to  Mr.  Daveis 
thus :  — 

To  C.  S.  DAVEIS,  PORTLAND. 

CAMBRIDGE,*  August  20,  1834. 

MY  DEAR  CHARLES,  —  Your  two  letters,  breathing  the  very  spirit 
of  affection  and  sympathy,  have  been  welcome  indeed  to  us.  Such 
kindness  is  the  earthly  consolation  appointed  for  sorrow  ;  and  I  need 
not  tell  you,  who  have  suffered,  how  much  we  prize  and  cherish  it. 
I  am,  however,  somewhat  surprised  at  the  feelings  that  fill  my 
thoughts,  they  are  so  different  from  what  I  anticipated.  While  my 
little  boy  lived,  I  looked  only  to  the  future,  and  considered  him  only  as 
a  bright  hope,  that  was  growing  brighter  every  day.  But  now  that  he 
is  gone  I  look  at  the  past  and  the  present,  and,  yielding  all  the  future, 
in  a  spirit  of  resignation,  to  God,  I  feel  the  immediate  loss,  the  press 
ing  want  of  something  that  was  so  dear  to  me,  and  that  was  asso 
ciated,  without  my  knowing  it,  to  everything  around  and  within  me. 

Thus  I  am  sad,  very  sad  ;  not  because  I  am  disappointed,  not  be 
cause  I  can  no  longer  look  to  my  child  as  the  support  and  comfort  of 
my  declining  years,  but  because  I  can  no  longer  see  his  bright  smile 
or  hear  his  glad  voice ;  because  I  turn  my  head  suddenly,  at  some 
familiar  sound,  and  he  is  not  there  ;  because  I  listen,  and  it  is  not  his 
light  step.  Why  it  should  be  so  I  cannot  tell.  Perhaps  this  sense 
of  present  loss,  overwhelming  the  feeling  of  hopes  destroyed,  is  to 
continue  only  for  a  time ;  perhaps  it  is  the  first  step  towards  that 
entire  resignation  and  acquiescence  which  I  strive  to  obtain,  and 
which  I  know  I  am  required  to  offer. 

I  forget  what  I  wrote  you  in  the  letter  immediately  after  my  little 
boy's  death,  but  I  cannot  have  told  you  one  thing  which  has  consoled 

*  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Ticknor  were  on  a  visit  to  Mrs.  Norton. 


&.&.]  RESIGNATION  OF  PROFESSORSHIP.  399 

us  very  much.  It  is,  that  his  disease,  though  a  very  obscure  one,  was  at 
no  time  mistaken.*.  .  .  .  His  faculties  and  characteristic  qualities  re 
mained  perfectly  clear  and  distinct,  to  the  last  moment,  and  his  mother 
was  able,  with  entire  composure  and  a  judgment  undisturbed,  to  take 
the  whole  care  of  him,  and  to  be  with  him  almost  constantly  from  the 
beginning  to  the  end,  five  full  weeks. 

To  C.  S.  DAVEIS,  PORTLAND. 

BOSTON,  October  25, 1834. 

Sorrow  still  dwells  among  us,  and  must  for  a  season.  The  melan 
choly  which  is  impressed  on  the  heart  by  severe  suffering,  as  you  well 
know  from  experience,  seems  to  come  up  afresh  long  afterwards,  from 
depths  you  knew  not  of  at  the  time,  just  as  the  passing  bell  con 
tinues  to  give  up  its  deep  and  heavy  tones  long  after  it  has  ceased  to 
be  struck.  But  this,  too,  will  pass  away,  under  the  healing  influence 
of  time  and  those  higher  principles  of  our  nature  which,  with  the  help 
of  religion,  are  able  to  control  all  the  rest. 

In  the  weary  months  that  followed,  the  struggle  to  put  aside 
the  heavy  weight  of  grief,  to  return  to  the  duties  of  the  hour, 
proved  too  much  for  the  physical  endurance  of  the  boy's  mother. 
Both  parents  were  resigned,  they  felt  the  Father's  hand  in  their 
bereavement,  they  looked  forward  to  a  blessed  meeting  with 
their  child  hereafter ;  but  the  human  frame  cannot  always  be 
braced  to  bear  what  the  will  demands  of  it.  Mr.  Ticknor  saw 
here  a  new  duty ;  and  while  his  thoughts  were  constantly  at  the 
other  brink  of  that  recent  grave,  —  he  said  a  few  years  afterwards 
to  a  friend,  that  the  other  world  seemed  to  him  separated  from 
this  by  only  a  very  thin  veil,  —  yet  he  did  not  waver  from  the 
performance  of  his  present  work.  He  saw  that  change  of  scene 
might  become  necessary,  and,  probably  in  preparation  for  this, 
he  brought  to  accomplishment  that  which  had  been  already  for 

some  time  among  his  purposes. 

BOSTON,  January  5,  1835. 

MY  DEAR  CHARLES,  —  Besides  wishing  you  a  happy  New  Year,  I 
have  a  word  to  say  about  myself.  I  have  substantially  resigned  my 
place  at  Cambridge,  and  Longfellow  is  substantially  appointed  to  fill 
it.  I  say  substantially,  because  he  is  to  pass  a  year  or  more  in  Ger 
many  and  the  North  of  Europe,  and  I  am  to  continue  in  the  place 

*  Pericarditis. 


400  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1835. 

till  he  returns,  which  will  be  in  a  year  from  next  Commencement  or 
thereabouts.  This  is  an  arrangement  I  have  had  at  heart  a  good 
while,  but  could  not  well  accomplish  earlier,  partly  because  my  de 
partment,  being  a  new  one,  was  not  brought,  until  lately,  into  a  good 
condition  to  leave,  and  partly  because  I  was  unwilling  to  seem  to  give 
up  the  College  during  the  troubles  of  the  late  rebellion. 

....  I  have  been  an  active  professor  these  fifteen  years,  and  for 
thirteen  years  of  the  time  I  have  been  contending,  against  a  constant 
opposition,  to  procure  certain  changes  which  should  make  the  large 
means  of  the  College  more  effectual  for  the  education  of  the  commu 
nity.  In  rny  own  department  I  have  succeeded  entirely,  but  I  can 
get  these  changes  carried  no  further.  As  long  as  I  hoped  to  advance 
them,  I  continued  attached  to  the  College  ;  when  I  gave  up  all  hope,  I 
determined  to  resign 

The  fact  that  I  am  to  be  free  in  a  year  makes  me  so  already  in 
spirit ;  and  I  look  back  upon  my  past  course  at  the  College  almost 
entirely  as  matter  of  history.  There  is  a  good  deal  in  it  that  gratifies 
me.  During  the  fifteen  years  of  my  connection  with  it  as  a  teacher, 
more  than  half  the  instruction  I  have  given  has  been  voluntary, 
neither  required  nor  contemplated  by  my  statutes.  When  the  finan 
ces  of  the  College  became  embarrassed,  seven  years  ago,  I  volunteered 
the  resignation  of  $400  out  of  the  stipulated  salary  of  f  1000,  and 
have  never  received  but  $  600  since.  During  the  nine  years  a  depart 
ment  of  the  modern  languages  has  existed,*  with  four  foreigners  for 
teachers,  who  are  generally  more  likely  to  have  difficulties  with  the 
students  than  natives,  no  case  whatsoever  has  been  carried  before  the 
Faculty,  and  during  the  whole  fifteen  years  I  have  never  myself  been 
absent  from  an  exercise,  or  tardy  at  one.  Moreover,  within  the  limits 
of  the  department  I  have  entirely  broken  up  the  division  of  classes, 
established  fully  the  principle  and  practice  of  progress  according  to 
proficiency,  and  introduced  a  system  of  voluntary  study,  which  for 
several  years  has  embraced  from  one  hundred  and  forty  to  one  hun 
dred  and  sixty  students  ;  so  that  we  have  relied  hardly  at  all  on  Col 
lege  discipline,  as  it  is  called,  but  almost  entirely  on  the  good  dispo 
sitions  of  the  young  men,  and  their  desire  to  learn.  If,  therefore,  the 
department  of  the  modern  languages  is  right,  the  rest  of  the  College 
is  wrong  ;  and  if  the  rest  of  the  College  is  right,  we  ought  to  adopt  its 
system,  which  I  believe  no  person  whatsoever  has  thought  desirable, 
for  the  last  three  or  four  years 

*  The  creation  of  departments  had  been  one  of  the  points  of  reform  urged  in 
1825,  but  carried  iuto  effect  only  for  the  modern  languages. 


&.  43.]         PLAN  OF  GOING  TO  EUROPE.  401 

In  my  whole  connection  with  it,  I  feel  as  if  I  had  been  as  much 
actuated  by  a  sense  of  duty  to  improve  the  institution,  and  serve  the 
community,  as  men  in  public  places  commonly  are.  So,  I  doubt  not, 
are  those  who  have  the  management  of  the  College,  and  pursue  the 
opposite  course.  I  do  not  know  that  it  could  be  in  the  hands  of  abler 
men,  or  men  more  disinterested  ;  certainly  not  of  men  for  whom  I 
have  a  greater  regard  or  respect.  We  differ,  however,  very  largely, 
both  as  to  what  the  College  can  be,  and  what  it  ought  to  be.  We 
therefore  separate,  as  men  who  go  different  roads,  though  proposing 
the  same  end,  each  persuaded  the  one  he  prefers  is  the  best,  the  pleas- 
antest,  and  the  shortest. 

Ten  weeks  later  he  writes  again  to  Mr.  Daveis  :  — 

BOSTON,  March  19,  1835. 

Mr  DEAR  CHARLES,  —  I  write  in  haste,  to  give  you  notice  of  a  plan 
which  has  been  settled  a  couple  of  days,  and  by  which  I  embark  with 
all  my  household  gods  for  Europe,  early  in  June,  to  be  absent  three 
years,  or  perhaps  four.  The  immediate  cause  is  Anna's  health.  We 
had  been  talking  for  many  months  of  the  possibility  of  going  two  or 
three  years  hence  ;  but,  as  Anna  said  yesterdajr,  it  always  seemed  so 
remote  and  uncertain,  that  she  had  never  for  a  moment  regarded  it  as 

a  reality.  But  all  winter  she  has  failed We  were,  therefore, 

arranging  everything  to  go  to  the  South,  and  the  West,  and  anywhere 
for  four  or  five  months 

There  was  nothing  against  it  [the  European  tour]  but  one  or  two 
unfulfilled  plans  of  my  own,  and  the  wish  to  have  the  children  a  little 
older,  that  they  might  more  profit  by  it.  Such  things  yielded  at  once 
to  the  state  of  Anna's  health,  especially  as  it  has  failed  considerably 
during  the  last  three  weeks.  We  go  to  live  in  different  places  in  Eu 
rope,  in  the  quietest  and  most  domestic  way,  ....  but  to  go  through 
as  vigorous  a  course  of  improvement  as  we  can,  by  an  industrious  use 
of  the  advantages  we  may  be  able  to  enjoy. 


402  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1835. 


CHAPTEE    XXI. 

Summer  in  England,  Wales,  and  Ireland.  —  Three  Weeks  in  London.  — 
Two  Weeks  of  Travel.  —  Meeting  of  the  British  Association  in  Dublin. 

WHEN  Mr.  Ticknor  entered  on  his  second  period  of  Euro 
pean  life,  he  resumed  his  former  habit  of  keeping  a  jour 
nal,  persevered  in  it  with  untiring  fidelity,  and  filled  its  pages 
with  accounts  of  all  that  was  likely  to  be  of  continued  interest 
to  himself  and  his  friends.  In  selecting  passages  from  this  jour 
nal  and  from  his  letters  of  the  same  period,  the  difficulty  has 
been  to  refrain  from  making  too  copious  extracts.  He  always, 
to  the  end  of  his  life,  regarded  the  years  he  passed  in  Europe  as 
being  in  some  degree  sacrificed ;  and  though  the  sacrifice  was 
made  each  time  for  a  worthy  purpose  and  met  a  rich  reward,  yet 
the  reward  never  fully  outweighed  to  him  the  warm  satisfaction 
of  life  in  his  native  country,  in  the  home  that  was  the  centre  of 
his  wishes  and  affections.  The  proportionate  value  which  he 
thus  gave,  in  his  own  mind,  to  the  different  points  of  his  experi 
ence,  should  not  be  wholly  disregarded  here ;  but  the  temptation 
is  irresistible  to  fill  many  pages  with  the  European  journal, 
though  only  a  very  small  part  of  the  whole  will  appear.* 

A  prosperous  voyage  of  twenty-five  days  from  New  York  to 
Liverpool  —  not  a  long  passage  for  those  days  of  sailing-ves 
sels —  had  an  exciting  conclusion,  which  Mr.  Ticknor  thus 
describes  :  — 

At  the  moment  when,  with  a  gentle  breeze,  we  felt  as  if  we  should 
reach  our  port  in  a  few  hours,  when,  in  fact,  I  was  sitting  quietly  in 
the  cabin,  writing  a  letter  to  announce  our  arrival,  the  wind  came  out 
suddenly  ahead,  and  almost  at  once  blew  a  gale.  It  was  not  without 
much  difficulty  and  tacking  all  day,  that  we  got  round  Holyheacl  and 

*  This  journal  includes  1,700  quarto  pages.  The  journal  of  his  first  visit  to 
Europe  contains  about  the  same  number  of  smaller  pages,  more  closely  written. 


M.  43.]  STORM  IN  THE  IRISH  CHANNEL.  403 

the  Skerries,  and  lay  to.  But  the  wind  in  the  night  became  more  vio 
lent,  we  drifted  a  good  deal,  and  at  last  were  obliged,  about  four 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  to  get  under  way  again.  Still  the  pilot  did 
not  venture  to  approach  the  mouth  of  the  river,  but  stood  off  and  on, 
until  he  finally  thought  the  danger  of  going  in  less  than  that  of 
attempting  to  keep  off,  as  the  ship  could  not  be  expected  to  bear  the 
canvas  necessary  to  enable  her  to  run  to  the  northward.  With  a  long 
tack,  therefore,  that  made  a  fair  wind  of  it,  we  drove  for  the  port. 
But  it  was  an  appalling  sight  to  see  her  cross  the  bar  and  rush  up  the 
river.  It  seemed  now  and  then  as  if  all  its  waters  were  swept  to 
gether  into  mountainous  heaps  by  the  violence  of  the  gale,  so  that  we 
saw  the  bottom  and  its  yellow  sands  ;  for  while  the  wind  carried  us 
[under  bare  poles]  twelve  knots  an  hour,  the  tide  carried  us  six  more. 
The  appearance  of  the  river  was  very  extraordinary  indeed.  Its 
waters  are  always  yellow,  and  were  now  rendered  doubly  so  by  the 
turbidness  which  the  violent  wind  gave  to  them  ;  and  as  this  wind, 
together  with  the  tide,  was  driving  so  furiously  up  the  stream,  the 
river  itself  looked  as  if  it  were  composed  of  moving  heaps  of  sand,  the 
very  foundations  of  which  we  could  see.  The  waves  seemed  higher 
than  they  do  in  a  gale  on  the  ocean,  because  they  could  be  measured 
by  objects  on  the  shores  ;  but  they  were  not  really  so.  The  house 
tops  on  the  river-bank  were  many  of  them  studded  with  people, 
watching  our  fearful  course  up  the  river,  and  expecting  to  see  us  go 
ashore  somewhere  before  their  eyes.  The  weather  was  sometimes,  for 
a  moment,  quite  thick ;  if  it  had  continued  so  for  a  quarter  of  an 
hour,  the  pilot  could  not  have  seen  his  landmarks,  and  we  should  have 
been  sent  instantly  on  some  of  the  many  shoals  around  us,  where,  as 
we  were  told  afterwards,  the  fury  of  the  tempest  would  have  made  a 
total  wreck  of  us  in  a  very  few  moments.  It  was,  therefore,  a  glad, 
very  glad  moment,  when,  after  twenty-six  hours'  buffeting  with  the 
spirit  of  this  storm,  we  placed  our  feet  once  more  on  the  firm-set  earth, 
just  at  twelve  o'clock,  midday,  of  Thursday  the  25th  of  June.*  But 
for  several  days  afterwards  we  continued  to  receive  melancholy  ac 
counts  of  the  disasters  of  others.  Four  fine  vessels  were  lost,  besides 
small  craft ;  and  among  them  a  brig  which  we  saw  repeatedly  during 
the  day,  and  a  very  large  ship,  larger  than  our  own,  —  which  took  the 
gale  a  good  deal  further  to  windward  than  we  did,  so  that  she  had 

*  Note  by  Mr.  Ticknor  :  "  Even  at  the  last  moment,  when  all  other  danger 
was  over,  we  were  within  two  minutes  of  being  entirely  wrecked,  from  the  cir 
cumstance  that  both  the  anchors  got  foul ;  but  if  the  worst  had  happened  here, 
no  lives  would  have  been  lost." 


404  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1835. 

much  the  advantage  of  us,  —  with  which  we  consorted  and  tacked  all 
day,  and  which  got  round  the  Skerries  immediately  after  us,  but  was 
a  total  wreck,  with  the  loss  of  all  on  board.  She  was  a  tine  British 
merchantman  from  the  Baltic.  Our  ship,  indeed,  behaved  nobly, 
and  carried  us  through  our  danger  as  if  she  were  conscious  and  proud 
of  her  success.  It  was  a  pleasure  to  see  and  to  feel  her  power.  The 
scene,  too,  was  very  grand  and  solemn,  especially  at  midnight,  when 
there  was  still  a  little  twilight ;  and  at  two  and  three  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  when  the  sea  was  running  very  high,  either  quite  black  or 
entirely  white.  But.  notwithstanding  this,  and  all  Milton's  poetry 
about  "  Mona's  wizard  height "  and  the  channel  here,  I  think  I  shall 
not  care  to  see  it  again,  in  fair  weather  or  foul. 

Once  safely  landed  on  English,  soil,  the  fresh  and  vivid  inter 
est  of  travel  began,  which.  Mr.  Ticknor  could  now  enjoy,  with 
less  regretful  longings  for  absent  friends  than  in  his  youthful 
journeys,  since  he  had  his  wife  and  his  two  little  girls  with  him. 
In  describing  the  departure  from  New  York,  whither  relatives 
had  accompanied  them,  and  where  friends  gathered  round  them, 
lie  says,  "  It  was  not  like  the  parting,  when  I  left  Boston,  twenty 
years  before,  for  England.  I  went  at  that  time  with  friends,  in 
deed,  but  with  none  of  my  family.  Now,  I  carry  all  with  me, 
....  and  as  I  travel  surrounded  by  my  home,  it  seems  not  un 
reasonable  to  hope  for  a  sort  of  enjoyment  of  which  I  then  had 
no  knowledge  ;  and  to  feel  sure  that  I  shall  escape  that  sensation 
of  solitude  and  weariness  which  made  my  absence  at  that  time 
all  but  intolerable  to  me."  The  welcome  he  everywhere  received 
was  very  gratifying,  and  he  entered  at  once  on  a  delightful  series 
of  social  excitements  and  pleasures. 

JOURNAL. 

OXFORD,  July  2,  1835.  —  The  approach  to  Oxford  is  fine,  its  tur 
rets  and  towers  showing  so  magnificently  from  all  sides  ;  and  the  drive 
up  High  Street,  with  palaces  on  either  hand,  is  one  of  the  grandest  in 
Europe.  As  soon  as  dinner  was  over  I  went  to  see  Dr.  Buckland,  the 
famous  geologist,  Professor  in  the  University,  and  Canon  of  Christ 
Church,  where  he  has  spacious  and  comfortable  apartments  for  his 
family,  including  a  pleasant  garden.  He  received  me  with  the  kind 
ness  which  is  characteristic  of  his  countrymen,  and  immediately  took 


M.  43.]  OXFORD.  405 

me  a  long  and  beautiful  walk,  to  show  me  the  grounds  and  meadows 
attached  to  his  magnificent  College.  On  our  return  he  proposed  to 
me  to  pass  the  evening  with  a  party,  at  the  other  corner  of  his  quad 
rangle,  collected  to  meet  Dr.  Chalmers,  who  is  just  now  the  great 
lion  at  Oxford,  having  come  here  to  be  created  D.  D 

I  went  with  Dr.  Buckland,  about  half  past  nine  o'clock,  to  Dr. 
Burton's,  the  Professor  of  Divinity,  who  lives  in  quite  a  magnificent 
style,  his  rooms  hung  with  velvet.  There  I  found  Dr.  Chalmers,  a 
very  plain,  earnest,  simple  man,  of  nearly  seventy ;  Davies  Gilbert, 
the  late  President  of  the  Royal  Society,  fully  seventy  years  old,  but 
extremely  pleasant  and  animated  ;  and  a  large  number  of  the  canons 
of  Christ  Church,  besides  our  host  and  his  handsome,  agreeable  wife, 
Dr.  and  Mrs.  Buckland,  the  younger  Copleston,  etc.,  etc.  It  was 
an  extremely  agreeable  conversazione.  Tea  was  over  when  we  en 
tered,  and  no  refreshment  was  offered  afterwards,  but  the  talk  was 
excellent,  and  spirited. 

Dr.  Chalmers  was  curious  and  acute  about  our  poor-laws,  and  knew 
a  good  deal  about  the  United  States ;  praised  Dr.  Channing  for  his 
intellectual  power  and  eloquence,  and  considered  his  mind  of  the  first 
order ;  thought  Stuart  the  ablest  man  in  America  on  the  other  side 
of  the  theological  discussions  going  on  there  ;  and  placed  a  great 
value  on  Abbott's  "  Young  Christian,"  and  his  other  practical  works. 
He  is,  I  think,  much  gratified  with  the  attentions  shown  him  at  Ox 
ford,  which  seem  to  have  been  abundant  for  a  week,  and  which  might 
indeed  flatter  any  man  ;  but  he  also  seems  plain,  straightforward,  and 
sincere,  speaking  his  broad  Scotch  as  honestly  as  possible,  and  express 
ing  his  own  opinions  faithfully,  but  entirely  considerate  of  the  opin 
ions  and  feelings  of  others. 

Mr.  Gilbert's  enthusiasm  is  more  prompt  and  obvious  than  that  of 
Dr.  Chalmers,  and  it  gratified  me  a  good  deal  to  hear  him  say,  in  the 
midst  of  the  savants  of  Oxford,  that  Dr.  Bowclitch's  "  La  Place"  is  the 
first  work  extant  on  Astronomy.  But  I  think  Dr.  Buckland  was 

accounted  the  pleasant  talker  of  the  party We  separated  a 

little  before  eleven,  having  made  an  arrangement  to  breakfast  with 
Dr.  Buckland,  who  asked  a  small  party  to  meet  us. 

July  3.  —  We  went  to  Dr.  Buckland's  at  nine,  and  found  there  Dr. 
Chalmers,  his  wife  and  daughter,  Dr.  and  Mrs.  Burton,  Mr.  Lloyd, 
Professor  of  Political  Economy,  Dr.  Barnes,  Vice  Dean  of  Christ 
Church,  and  one  or  two  others. 

We  breakfasted  in  Dr.  Buckland's  study,  surrounded  with  the  man 
uscripts  of  his  "Bridgewater  Treatise,"  now  in  the  press,  organic 


406  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1835. 

remains  of  all  sorts,  and  the  books  and  paraphernalia  of  a  hard-work 
ing,  efficient  student.  It  was  all  very  pleasant.  The  conversation 
was  general,  and  such  as  suited  a  small  party  in  such  a  place  ;  but  the 
whole,  including  a  walk  in  the  garden,  was  not  protracted  beyond 
half  past  ten  o'clock. 

After  the  rest  of  the  party  were  gone,  Dr.  Buckland  carried  us 
through  the  whole  of  the  magnificence  of  his  magnificent  College  in 

detail We  then  took  his  written  directions  for  a  more  cursory 

view  of  the  rest  of  Oxford. 

The  travellers  reached  London  on  the  4th  of  July,  and  the  next 
morning,  among  other  visits,  Mr.  Ticknor  called  on  Mr.  Samuel 
Eogers,  —  whom  he  calls  "  the  Doyen  of  English  literature,"  — 
and  promised  to  return  in  the  evening  and  dine  with  him. 

JOURNAL. 

July  5.  —  The  dinner  at  Rogers's  was  truly  agreeable  ;  nobody 
present  but  Mr.  Kenney,  the  author  of  the  farce  "  Eaising  the  Wind." 
The  house,  as  everybody  knows,  opens  on  the  park  near  the  old  mall, 
which  was  the  fashionable  walk  in  Pope's  time,  and  the  place  from 
which  the  beaux  were  to  see  the  lock  of  Belinda's  hair,  when  it  should 
be  changed  into  a  constellation  ;  his  garden  gate  opening  immediately 
upon  the  green  grass,  and  his  library  and  dining-room  windows  com 
manding  a  prospect  of  the  whole  of  the  park,  and  of  all  the  gay  life 
that  is  still  seen  there. 

Everything  within  the  house  is  as  beautiful  and  in  as  good  taste  as 
the  prospect  abroad.  The  rooms  are  fine  and  appropriate,  and  the 
walls  covered  with  beautiful  pictures,  ....  each  of  the  principal 
masters  being  well  represented.  The  library  is  the  same,  all  recherchtf, 

and  yet  all  in  perfectly  good  taste Mr.  Rogers's  conversation 

was  in  keeping  with  his  establishment,  full  of  the  past,  —  anecdotes, 
facts,  recollections  in  abundance,  —  and  yet  quite  familiar  with  all  that 
is  now  passing  and  doing  in  the  world.  All  he  says  is  marked  by  the 
good  taste  he  shows  in  his  works,  and  the  perfected  good  sense  which 
he  has  been  almost  a  century  in  acquiring 

July  10.*  — .  .  .  .  From  two  to  four  or  five  we  were  at  a  very  agreea 
ble  private  concert,  given  for  the  benefit  of  the  poor  Poles,  by  Mad. 
Filipowicz,  who  played  marvellously  on  the  violin  herself.  Tickets 

*  The  intervening  days  were  busy  ones,  and  included  meetings  with  interest 
ing  persons,  most  of  whom  are,  however,  mentioned  afterwards. 


M.  43.]  LONDON.  407 

were  kindly  sent  to  us  by  Lady  C.  D.,  or  we  should  have  known 
nothing  about  it,  and  should  have  been  sorry  to  have  missed  it,  for  a 
large  number  of  the  best  singers  were  there,  —  Tamburini,  Lablache, 
Rubini,  Grisi,  Malibran 

Returning  some  visits  afterwards  we  found  Mrs.  Lockhart  at  home, 
and  spent  some  time  with  her  and  her  children,  whom  we  shall  not 
see  again  on  this  visit,  as  they  go  to  Boulogne  for  a  month  to-morrow. 
She  is  grown  a  matronly  woman  since  I  saw  her,  and  her  boy,  Wal 
ter,  is  a  fine  little  fellow,  with  his  grandfather's  long  upper  lip ;  but  in 
other  respects  she  is  little  changed.  Her  Scotch  accent  is  as  broad  as 
ever,  and  she  is  still  entirely  simple,  frank,  and  kindly. 

I  was  much  gratified  to  have  her  tell  me  that  it  was  the  opinion  of 
the  family  and  friends  that  my  picture  of  her  father  is  the  best  one 
extant,  and  that  nothing  equals  it  except  Chantrey's  bust  ;  so  that  I 
am  sure  of  it  now,  for  she  volunteered  the  remark,  with  all  her  char 
acteristic  simplicity  and  directness. 

The  evening  we  spent  very  agreeably  indeed,  in  a  party  collected  to 
meet  us  at  Mrs.  Lister's.*  Mr.  Parker  was  there,  whom  I  saw  in 
Boston  a  year  ago,  and  who  has  lately  carried  a  contested  election 
against  Lord  John  Russell ;  .  .  .  .  Lord  and  Lady  Morley,  fine  old 
people  of  the  best  school  of  English  character  ;  the  beautiful  and 
unpretending  Lady  James  Graham  ;  .  .  .  .  Senior,  the  political  econ 
omist  ;  Babbage,  the  inventor  of  the  great  calculating  machine,  etc. 
....  We  went  at  ten  and  came  home  at  midnight,  having  enjoyed 
ourselves  a  good  deal ;  for  they  were  all,  as  far  as  I  talked  with  them, 
highly  cultivated,  intellectual  people. 

July  12.  — .  .  .  .  From  church  we  went,  by  his  especial  invitation, 
to  see  Babbage's  calculating  machine  ;  and  I  must  say,  that  during  an 
explanation  which  lasted  between  two  and  three  hours,  given  by  him 
self  with  great  spirit,  the  wonder  at  its  incomprehensible  powers  grew 
upon  us  every  moment.  The  first  thing  that  struck  me  was  its  small 
size,  being  only  about  two  feet  wide,  two  feet  deep,  and  two  and  a 
half  high.  The  second  very  striking  circumstance  was  the  fact  that 
the  inventor  himself  does  not  profess  to  know  all  the  powers  of  the 

*  Mrs.  Thomas  Lister,  —  afterwards  Lady  Theresa,  —  sister  to  Lord  Claren 
don.  After  Mr.  Lister's  death  she  became,  in  1844,  the  wife  of  Sir  George 
Cornewall  Lewis  ;  and,  beside  her  novel  "Dacre," — reprinted  in  America  before 
1835,  — she  published,  in  1852,  the  "Lives  of  Friends  and  Contemporaries  of 
Lord  Chancellor  Clarendon."  Her  beauty  was  celebrated.  Mr.  Lister  was  the 
author  of  "Granby,"  "Herbert  Lacy,"  etc.,  and  of  a  life  of  Lord  Chancellor 
Clarendon. 


408  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1835. 

machine  ;  that  he  has  sometimes  been  quite  surprised  at  some  of  its 
capacities  ;  and  that  without  previous  calculation  he  cannot  always  tell 
whether  it  will,  or  will  not  work  out  a  given  table.  The  third  was, 
that  he  can  set  it  to  do  a  certain  regular  operation,  as,  for  instance, 
counting  1,  2,  3,  4 ;  and  then  determine  that,  at  any  given  number, 
say  the  10,000th,  it  shall  change  and  take  a  different  ratio,  like  trian 
gular  numbers,  1,  3,  6,  9,  12,  etc.  ;  and  afterwards  at  any  other  given 
point,  say  10,550,  change  again  to  another  ratio.  The  whole,  of 
course,  seems  incomprehensible,  without  the  exercise  of  volition  and 

thought But  he  is  a  very  interesting  man,  ardent,  eager,  and 

of  almost  indefinite  intellectual  activity,  bold  and  frank  in  expressing 
all  his  opinions  and  feelings 

I  dined  at  Lord  Holland's,  in  his  venerable  and  admirable  estab 
lishment  at  Holland  House.  The  party  was  small,  but  it  was  select. 
Lord  and  Lady  Holland,  and  Mr.  Allen  ;  Colonel  Fox,  and  his  wife 
Lady  Mary,  the  daughter  of  the  present  king ;  Earl  Grey,  who  has 
such  preponderating  influence  now,  without  being  Minister  ;  Lord 
Melbourne,  the  Premier  himself ;  Mr.  Labouchere,*  another  of  the 
Ministry,  who  was  in  America,  and  who  is  now  Master  of  the  Mint 
and  Vice-President  of  the  Board  of  Trade,  as  well  as  Member  of  Par 
liament  ;  Lord  and  Lady  Cowper,  who  is  sister  of  Lord  Melbourne  ; 
and  Lord  Minto,  lately  Minister  at  Berlin. 

In  the  evening  my  old  friend  Murray,  now  Lord  Advocate  of 
Scotland,  came  in,  and  Lady  Minto,  with  one  of  the  Austrian  Lega 
tion,  and  several  other  persons.  The  conversation  was  extremely 
vivacious  and  agreeable.  Lord  Grey  is  uncommonly  well  preserved 
for  his  age,  being  now  seventy-one  years  old,  and  talked  well  on  all 
subjects  that  came  up,  including  Horace  ;  Fanny  Kemble's  book, 
which  he  cut  to  pieces  without  ceremony  ;  the  great  question  of 
the  ballot  and  its  application  to  English  elections,  etc. 

Lord  Melbourne,  now  fifty-six  years  old,  was  somewhat  less  digni 
fied  than  Lord  Grey,  but  seemed  to  be  very  heartily  liked  by  every 
body.  He,  too,  was  full  of  literary  anecdote,  and  a  pleasant,  frank, 
and  extremely  easy  talk,  occasionally,  however,  marked  with  a  quick, 
penetrating  glance,  which  showed  him  to  be  always  ready  and 
vigilant. 

After  dinner,  when  we  were  in  the  long  library,  he  took  me  away 

*  Henry  Labouchere,  afterwards  Lord  Taunton,  travelled  in  the  United  States 
iu  1824  -  25  with  Hon.  Edward  Stanley,  —  the  late  Earl  of  Derby,  —  Hon.  Stuart 
Wortley,  and  Evelyn  Denison,  —  afterwards  Speaker  of  the  House  of  Commons 
and  Lord  Ossington, —  when  they  all  were  often  at  Mr.  Ticknor's  house. 


M.  43.]  HOLLAND  HOUSE. 


from  the  rest  of  the  party,  and  asked  ine  a  great  many  questions 
about  the  practical  operation  of  the  ballot  in  the  United  States,  and 
gave  his  opinion  very  freely  on  the  relations  of  the  two  countries. 
He  said  that  as  we  get  along  further  from  the  period  of  our  Revo 
lution  and  the  feelings  that  accompanied ,  it,  we  get  along  easier 
together  ;  that  Jefferson  and  Madison  disliked  England  so  much  that 
they  took  every  opportunity  to  make  difficulty  ;  that  Monroe  was  a 
more  quiet  sort  of  person,  but  that  J.  Q.  Adams  "  hated  England  " ; 
and  that  they  much  preferred  the  present  administration,  which  seemed 
sincerely  disposed  to  have  all  things  easy  and  right.  He  asked  if  Van 
Buren  was  likely  to  be  the  next  President.  I  told  him  I  thought  he 
would  be.  He  said  he  was  a  pleasant  and  agreeable  man,  but  he  did 
not  think  him  so  able  as  Mr.  McLane,  who  preceded  him.*  He 
.  asked  if  there  was  no  chance  for  Webster.  I  told  him  I  thought 
there  was  but  little.  He  said  that  from  what  he  had  read  of  his 
speeches,  and  what  he  had  heard  about  him,  he  supposed  Webster  was 
a  much  stronger  man  than  Van  Buren,  etc.,  etc.  His  manner  was  always 
frank,  and  often  gay,  and  during  the  whole  dinner,  and  till  he  went 
away,  which  was  not  till  about  eleven  o'clock,  I  should  not  —  if  I  had 
not  known  him  to  be  Prime  Minister  —  have  suspected  that  any 
burden  of  the  state  rested  on  his  shoulders. 

It  struck  me  as  singular  that  dinner  was  not  at  all  delayed  for 
him ;  so  that  we  sat  down  without  him  and  without  inquiry,  except 
that,  after  we  were  at  table,  Lady  Holland  asked  Lady  Cowper  if 
her  brother  would  not  come.  To  which  she  replied,  he  certainly 
would.  Even  at  last,  when  he  came  in,  so  little  notice  was  taken  of 
him  that,  though  he  sat  opposite  to  me,  —  and  the  party  was  very 
small  and  at  a  round  table,  —  I  did  not  perceive  his  arrival,  or  suspect 
who  he  was,  until  I  was  introduced  to  him  some  moments  afterwards. 
Another  thing  struck  me,  too  ;  the  King  was  alluded  to  very  uncere 
moniously  when  Lady  Mary  Fox  was  not  present.  Without  saying 
directly  that  he  had  done  a  very  vulgar  thing,  Lord  Melbourne  said 
the  King  had  actually,  the  day  before  yesterday,  proposed  fourteen 
toasts  and  made  a  quantity  of  speeches  at  his  own  table ;  intending  to 
be  understood  that  the  King  had  done  what  was  entirely  unbecoming 
his  place.  Indeed,  it  was  plain,  the  King  is  not  a  favorite  among 
his  present  ministers. 

Public  business  was  much  talked  about,  —  the  corporation  bill,  the 
motion  for  admitting  dissenters  to  the  universities,  etc.,  etc.  ;  and  as 
to  the  last,  when  the  question  arose  whether  it  would  be  debated  on 

*  As  Ministers  of  the  United  States  to  England. 
VOL.  I.  18 


410  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1835. 

Tuesday  night,  it  was  admitted  to  be  doubtful  whether  Lady  Jersey 
would  not  succeed  in  getting  it  postponed,  as  she  has  a  grand  din 
ner  that  evening Nothing  could  exceed  the  luxury  of  the  re 
cherche  dinner  ;  .  .  .  .  the  gentlemen  sat  about  an  hour,  when  the  ladies 
had  retired  ;  the  conversation  during  the  whole  evening  being  very 
various  and  lively,  much  filled  with  literary  allusion  and  spirit,  and 
a  little  louder  and  more  bruyant  than  it  was  when  I  was  in  England 
before,  in  similar  company. 

Monday,  July  13.  —  We  all  breakfasted  —  including  Nannie  —  with 
the  excellent  and  kind  old  Mr.  Eogers,  nobody  being  present  except 
Campbell  the  poet,  who  returned  two  or  three  days  ago  from  his  Al- 
gerine  expedition,  of  which,  of  course,  he  is  now  full.  I  need  not  say 
that  the  two  hours  we  thus  passed  were  extremely  agreeable.  The 
vast  amount  of  Mr.  Rogers's  recollections,  extending  back  through  the 
best  society  for  sixty  years  ;  his  exquisite  taste,  expressed  alike  in  his 
conversation,  his  books,  his  furniture,  and  his  pictures  ;  his  excellent 
common-sense  and  sound  judgment;  and  his  sincere,  gentle  kindness,* 
coming  quietly,  as  it  does,  from  the  venerableness  of  his  age,  render 
him  one  of  the  most  delightful  men  a  stranger  can  see  in  London. 
He  went  over  his  whole  house  with  us,  showed  us  his  pictures,  curi 
osities,  correspondence  with  distinguished  men,  etc.,  etc.,  and  made  the 
visit  seem  extremely  short.  Campbell  was  pleasant,  a  little  over-nice 
both  in  his  manner  and  choice  of  words  and  subjects,  witty,  even,  some 
times  ;  but,  though  full  of  fresh  knowledge  from  Africa,  by  no  means 
so  interesting  as  Rogers. 

July  14.  —  I  went  this  morning  by  appointment  to  see  Lady  Byron. 
....  The  upper  part  of  her  face  is  still  fresh  and  young  ;  the  lower 
part  bears  strong  marks  of  suffering  and  sorrow.  Her  whole  manner 
is  very  gentle  and  quiet,  —  not  reserved,  but  retiring,  —  and  there  are 
sure  indications  in  it  of  -deep  feeling.  She  is  much  interested  in 
doing  good,  and  seemed  anxious  about  a  school  she  has  established, 
to  support,  as  well  as  educate,  a  number  of  poor  boys,  so  as  to  fit  them 
to  be  teachers.t  She  talked  well,  and  once  or  twice  was  amused, 
and  laughed  ;  but  it  was  plain  that  she  has  little  tendency  to  gayety. 
Indeed,  she  has  never  been  in  what  is  called  society,  since  her  sepa- 

*  Note  by  Mr.  Ticknor  on  another  occasion :  "  From  what  I  have  heard  since, 
I  suppose  Rogers  is  not  always  so  kind  and  charitable  as  I  found  him  both 
to-day  and  whenever  I  saw  him  afterwards." 

t  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Ticknor  visited  this  school  at  Baling,  by  the  desire  of  Lady 
Byron,  and  were  pleased  especially  with  seeing  "how  much  can  be  done  by  a 
moderate  sum  of  money,  judiciously  expended." 


M.  43.]  MR.   JOHN  KENYON.  411 

ration  from  Lord  Byron,  not  even  to  accompany  her  daughter,  who 
went  abroad,  whenever  she  went  at  all,  with  Mrs.  Somerville.  Her 
whole  appearance  and  conversation  gratified  me  very  much,  it  was  so 
entirely  suited  to  her  singular  position  in  the  world. 

We  dined  with  my  friend  Kenyon*  very  agreeably,  meeting  Mr. 
Robinson,t  a  great  friend  of  Wordsworth,  and  a  man  famous  for  con 
versation  ;  Mr.  Harness,  a  popular  and  fashionable  preacher,  who  has 
lately  edited  one  of  the  small  editions  of  Shakespeare  very  well  ;  and 
live  or  six  other  very  pleasant  men.  It  was  a  genuinely  English 
dinner,  in  good  taste,  with  all  the  elegance  of  wealth,  and  with  the 
intellectual  refinement  that  belongs  to  one  who  was  educated  at  one 
of  their  Universities,  and  is  accustomed  to  the  best  literary  society  of 
his  country. 

July  15.  —  I  dined  with  Mr.  T.  Baring,  and  a  small  party,  fitted 
to  his  fine  bachelor's  establishment,  where  nearly  every  person  was 
a  member  of  the  House  of  Commons.  The  two  persons  I  liked 
best,  whom  I  had  not  seen  before,  were  Sir  (George  Grey,  the  principal 
Under  Secretary  for  the  Colonies,  and  Mr.  Bingham  Baring,  eldest 
son  of  Lord  Ashburton,  of  opposite  politics,  but  both  very  intelligent 
men.  Labouchere  was  there,  and  Wilmot,  whom  I  had  known  as 
Secretary  of  Legation  to  Mr.  Addington.  The  talk  was  chiefly  on 
English  party  politics,  which  were  discussed  with  entire  good-humor 
and  some  raillery,  the  company  being  nearly  equally  divided  on  the 
points  that  now  divide  the  nation. 

From  dinner  I  went  with  Mrs.  T.  to  Mrs.  Boiler's  in  Westminster, 
one  of  the  leading  old  English  Tory  families,  in  which  they  have  now 
both  a  bishop  and  an  admiral,  besides  two  members  of  the  House  of 
Commons  ;  the  youngest  of  whom,  representing  Liskeard,  has  lately 
made  a  speech  in  favor  of  the  ballot,  which  has  created  quite  a  sensa 
tion The  party  was  small,  and  the  most  interesting  persons  in 

it  were  Mrs.  Austin,  the  translator,  who  seems  to  have  a  strong  mas 
culine  mind,  ....  and  the  famous  O'Connell,  a  stout  gentleman,  with 

*  In  another  passage  of  the  Journal  Mr.  Ticknor  says  :  "  Mr.  Kenyon  is  a 
man  of  fortune  and  literary  tastes  and  pursuits,  about  fifty  years  old,  whom  I 
knew  on  the  Continent  in  1817.  He  has  travelled  a  great  deal,  and  though  a 
shy  man  and  mixing  little  in  general  society,  is  a  man  of  most  agreeable  and 
various  resources.  Three  or  four  years  ago  he  printed,  without  his  name,  a 
volume  called  '  A  Rhymed  Plea  for  Tolerance,'  which  was  much  praised  hi  the 
'  Edinburgh  Review,'  and  contains  certainly  much  poetical  feeling,  and  a  most 
condensed  mass  of  thought." 

t  Henry  Crabbe  Robinson. 


412  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1835. 

a  full,  but  rather  hard,  florid  face,  and  a  red  wig,  talking  strongly  and 
fluently  upon  all  subjects. 

We  could,  however,  stay  there  but  a  short  time,  for  we  were  to  go 
to  Almack's,  where,  with  some  exertion,  we  arrived  just  before  the 
doors  were  closed  at  midnight.  It  was  very  brilliant,  as  it  always  is, 
and  the  arrangements  for  ease  and  comfort  were  perfect ;  no  ceremony, 
no  supper,  no  regulation  or  managing,  brilliantly  lighted  large  halls, 

very  fine  music,  plenty  of  dancing It  struck  me,  however, 

that  there  were  fewer  of  the  leading  nobility  and  fashion  there  than 
formerly,  and  that  the  general  cast  of  the  company  was  younger.  I 
talked  with  Lady  Cowper,  Lady  Minto,  and  Lord  Falmouth,  for  I 
hardly  knew  any  one  else,  and  was  very  well  pleased  when,  at  two 
o'clock,  the  ladies  declared  themselves  ready  to  come  home. 

July  16.  —  We  drove  out  to  Chelsea  this  morning  and  had  a  very 
pleasant  hour  with  Mrs.  Somerville,  which  made  me  doubly  sorry 
that  constant  engagements  elsewhere  prevent  us  from  accepting  their 

very  kind  and  hearty  invitations  to  Chelsea They  are  all  as 

simple,  natural,  and  kind  as  possible.  I  went,  too,  while  Mrs.  Tick- 
nor  was  with  Mrs.  Somerville,  to  inquire  for  poor  Stewart  Newton, 
and  heard  only  of  the  constant  failure  of  his  strength,  and  the  pros 
pect  of  his  final  release,  even  within  a  few  days  or  weeks. 

We  dined  at  Mr.  Senior's,*  with  a  party  of  about  a  dozen,  including 
Archbishop  Whately,  who  is  staying  in  the  house,  with  his  chaplain, 
Dr.  Dickinson ;  Sir  David  Baird,  who  went  to  Russia  on  the  first 
appearance  of  the  cholera  there  to  report  on  it  to  his  government ; 
etc.,  etc.  The  Archbishop  of  Dublin  was  the  most  curious  person  to 
me,  of  course.  He  is  tall,  rather  awkward,  constantly  in  motion, 
constantly  talking  very  rapidly,  with  a  good  deal  of  acuteness  and  a 
great  variety  of  knowledge,  not  without  humor,  and  indulging  fre 
quently  in  classical  allusions  and  once  or  twice  venturing  a  Greek 
quotation.  He  is  not  prepossessing  in  manner,  and  Rogers,  from  the 
constant  motion  of  his  person  from  side  to  side,  calls  him  the  "White 
Bear  "  ;  t  but  you  always  feel,  in  talking  with  him,  that  you  are  in 

*  Nassau  W.  Senior,  the  distinguished  barrister  and  political  economist, 
shortly  before  this  period  Professor  of  Political  Economy  at  Oxford,  and  princi 
pal  author  of  changes  in  the  Poor  Laws.  Mr.  Senior's  "Diaries,"  since  pub 
lished,  show  the  variety 'of  social  and  political  information  which  made  inter 
course  with  him  full  of  entertainment. 

t  Note  by  Mr.  Ticknor :  "  This  joke,  I  find  since,  was  not  original  with 
Rogers,  but  a  nickname  Whately  obtained  when  he  was  head  of  one  of  the  small 
colleges  at  Oxford." 


M.  43.]  MISS  JOANNA  BAILLIE. 

the  grasp  of  a  powerful  mind The  conversation  was  uncom 
monly  various,  and  the  Archbishop  and  Sir  D.  Baird  very  entertain 
ing.  We  brought  Mrs.  Austin  home  in  our  carriage,  and  had  some 
very  pleasant  talk  with  her  in  a  drive  of  three  miles. 

July  17.  —  In  returning  a  few  calls  this  morning  I  went  to  see 
Sydney  Smith,  and  found  him  a  good  deal  stouter  than  he  was  when 
I  knew  him  before,  and  with  his  hair  grown  quite  white  ;  but  not  a 
jot  less  amusing.  He  seems  to  think  that  the  government  of  the 
United  States  was  much  weakened  by  the  compromise  about  the 
tariff  with  South  Carolina,  and  says  that  it  is  the  opinion  of  the  wise 
politicians  in  England 

We  dined  in  the  city  with  our  very  kind  friends  the  Vaughans  ;  * 
and  I  was  much  gratified  to  find  that,  notwithstanding  Mr.  W. 
Vaughan's  great  age,  he  is,  excepting  deafness,  quite  well  preserved. 
....  We  met  there,  too,  my  old  friend  Mr.  Maltby,  the  succes 
sor  of  Person  as  Librarian  of  the  London  Institution,  whom  I  had 
formerly  known  both  here  and  in  Italy,  still  full  of  the  abundance  of 
his  learning  and  zeal. 

The  evening,  from  a  little  after  ten  to  half  past  one,  we  spent  at 
the  Marchioness  of  Lansdowne's,  who  gave  a  grand  concert.  The 
house  itself,  with  its  fine  grounds  filling  the  whole  of  one  side  of 

Berkeley  Square,  is  not  surpassed  by  any  in  London It  was 

of  course,  in  the  phrase  of  the  town,  "  a  select  party,"  and  was  on 

the  highest  scale  of  London  magnificence  -and  exclusiveness 

The  music  was  such  as  suited  such  a  party ;  Malibran,  Grisi,  and 
Rubini,  —  the  three  finest  voices  in  Europe,  —  assisted  by  Lablache, 
Tamburini,  etc.  Malibran  and  Grisi  were  twice  pitted  against  each 
other  in  duets,  and  did  unquestionably  all  they  were  capable  of  doing 
to  surpass  each  other.  The  effect  was  certainly  very  great.  I  en 
joyed  it  vastly  more  than  I  enjoyed  Almack's,  for  I  knew  a  large 
number  of  people,  and  had  a  plenty  of  pleasant  conversation. 

July  18. — At  twelve  o'clock  we  drove  out,  by  appointment,  to 
Mrs.  Joanna  Baillie's,  at  Hampstead,  took  our  lunch  with  her,  and 

passed  the  time  at  her  house  till  four  o'clock We  found  her 

living  in  a  small  and  most  comfortable,  nice,  unpretending  house, 
where  she  has  dwelt  for  above  thirty  years.  She  is  now  above 
seventy,  and,  dressed  with  an  exact  and  beautiful  propriety,  received 
us  most  gently  and  kindly.  Her  accent  is  still  Scotch  ;  her  manner 
strongly  marked  with  that  peculiar  modesty  which  you  sometimes 

*  See  ante,  pp.  15  and  55. 


414  LIFE  OF  GEOEGE  TICKNOR.  [1835. 

see  united  to  the  venerableness  of  age,  and  which  is  then  so  very 
winning;  and  her  conversation,  always  quiet  and  never  reminding 
you  of  her  own  claims  as  an  author,  is  so  full  of  good  sense,  with 
occasionally  striking  and  decisive  remarks  and  occasionally  a  little 
touch  of  humor,  that  I  do  not  know  when  I  have  been  more  pleased 
and  gratified  than  I  was  by  this  visit. 

She  lives  exactly  as  an  English  gentlewoman  of  her  age  and  char 
acter  should  live,  and  everything  about  her  was  in  good  taste  and 
appropriate  to  her  position,  even  down  to  the  delicious  little  table 
she  had  spread  for  us  in  her  quiet  parlor. 

When  I  asked  her  about  her  own  works,  she  answered  my  questions 
very  simply  and  directly,  but  without  any  air  of  authorship  ;  and  I 
was  very  glad  to  hear  her  say  that,  in  the  autumn,  she  intends  to 
publish  the  three  remaining  volumes  of  her  plays,  which  have  been 
so  many  years  in  manuscript,  thinking,  as  she  said,  "  that  it  is  better 
to  do  up  all  her  own  work,  as  she  has  lived  to  be  so  old,  rather  than 
to  leave  it,  as  she  originally  intended,  to  her  executors."  She  led  us 
a  short  distance  from  her  house  and  showed  us  a  magnificent  view 
of  London,  in  the  midst  of  which,  wreathed  in  mist,  the  dome  of  St. 
Paul's  towered  up  like  a  vast  spectre  to  the  clouds,  and  seemed  to 
be  the  controlling  power  of  the  dense  mass  of  human  habitations 
around  and  beneath  it.  It  is  the  most  imposing  view  of  London  I 
have  ever  seen 

July  19,  Sunday.  —  ....  We  went  to  St.  Paul's  and  heard  Sydney 

Smith,  who  had  kindly  given  us  his  pew The  sermon  was  an 

admirable  moral  essay,  to  prove  that  righteousness  has  the  promise 
of  the  life  that  now  is.  It  was  written  with  great  condensation  of 
thought  and  purity  of  style,  and  sometimes  with  brilliancy  of  phrase 
and  expression,  and  it  was  delivered  with  great  power  and  emphasis. 
....  It  was  by  far  the  best  sermon  I  ever  heard  in  Great  Britain, 
though  I  have  heard  Alison,  Morehead,  etc.,  besides  a  quantity  of 
bishops  and  archbishops,  and  both  the  manner  and  matter  would  have 
been  striking  anywhere.  After  the  service  was  over  and  we  were 
coming  away,  Mr.  Smith  came,  in  some  unaccountable  manner,  out 
of  one  of  the  iron  gates  that  lead  into  the  body  of  the  church,  and 
went  round  with  us,  placed  us  under  the  vast  dome,  and  showed  us 
the  effect  from  the  end  of  the  immense  nave.  It  was  very  solemn, 
notwithstanding  which  he  could  not  refrain  from  his  accustomed 
humor  and  severe  criticism. 

July  20.  —  Just  as  I  was  going  to  breakfast  I  received  a  very  kind 
note  from  Mr.  Eogers,  asking  me  to  come  and  breakfast  with  his  old 


M.  43.]  PROFESSOR  SMYTH.  415 

friend  Whishart*  and  Professor  Smyth.t  I  was  very  glad  to  go,  to 
meet  the  latter  especially,  whom  I  had  barely  seen  at  Lady  Lans- 
downe's  concert.  His  singular  appearance  attracted  my  notice  there, 
at  first.  Tall  and  somewhat  awkward,  dressed  like  a  marquis  de  Van- 
den  regime,  and  looking  like  one,  with  his  earlocks  combed  out  and 
his  hair  powdered,  but  still  with  an  air  of  great  carelessness,  he 
moved  about  in  that  brilliant  assembly,  hardly  spoken  to  by  a  single 
person,  with  a  modest  and  quiet  air,  as  if  he  belonged  not  to  it ;  and 
yet,  when  there  was  a  fine  passage  in  the  music,  seeming  to  enjoy  it 
as  if  he  were  all  ear.  This  morning  he  came  in  the  same  whimsical 
dress,  and  had  the  same  singular  air.  But  I  found  it  all  entirely 
natural  and  simple.  He  talked  well,  and  not  much,  and  some  of  his 
remarks  had  great  beauty  as  well  as  great  truth  and  originality  ;  now 
and  then  he  showed  a  striking  eagerness  in  manner  which  contrasted 
strongly  with  his  usual  modesty  and  reserve.  On  the  whole,  I  think 
he  justified  his  reputation  as  a  man  of  genius,  and  as  one  of  the  first 
men  now  at  Cambridge,  where  he  is  Professor  of  Modern  History. 

I  was  sorry  to  leave  them  early,  and  for  so  disagreeable  a  purpose 
as  that  of  being  examined  before  a  committee  of  the  House  of  Com 
mons,  on  the  subject  of  the  ballot  as  practically  managed  in  the 
United  States.  I  had  refused  twice  to  go,  but  being  much  pressed 
and  receiving  a  very  civil  note  from  the  chairman,  and  having  nothing 
to  say  but  what  I  chose,  I  at  last  went.  Mr.  Ord,  a  pleasant  gentle 
man  from  Northumberland,  whose  father  I  formerly  knew,  presided, 
and  Warburton,  the  philosopher,  as  they  call  him,  Grote,  a  very  sen 
sible,  excellent  member  from  the  city,  etc.,  were  present,  and  asked 
acute  questions.  I  was,  however,  most  curious  about  Shiel,  the  Irish 
agitator  ;  a  short,  thick-set,  fiery-faced  little  fellow,  who  carried  all 
the  marks  of  his  spirit  in  the  eagerness  of  his  countenance  and  man 
ner,  and  in  the  rapidity  and  vehemence  of  his  utterance.  They  all 
treated  me  with  the  greatest  courtesy  and  kindness,  evidently  de 
sirous  only  to  get  facts The  examinations  are  very  skilfully  and 

very  fairly  conducted,  if  these  are  specimens. 

We  dined  with  Mrs.  Reid  ;{....  the  dinner  was  more  than  com- 

*  Note  by  Mr.  Ticktior :  "  I  did  not  then  know  who  Whishart  was  ;  but 
Miss  Edgeworth  afterwards  told  me  that  he  was  a  man  of  much  talent,  and  one  of 
the  men  of  all  societies  in  his  time,  the  particular  friend  of  Sir  Samuel  Romilly." 

t  Professor  Smyth,  whom  Mr.  Ticknor  had  seen  in  1819,  in  Cambridge  ;  see 
ante,  p.  271. 

J  A  lady  of  fortune  and  radical  opinions,  who  gave  her  time  and  money  to 
the  service  of  the  poor,  in  a  truly  Christian  spirit.  She  kept  open  a  library 
and  reading-room  for  them,  at  her  own  expense. 


416  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1835. 

monly  agreeable.  Dr.  Roget  was  there,  ,the  Secretary  of  the  Eoyal 
Society  and  author  of  one  of  the  Bridgewater  Treatises,  a  first-rate 
man ;  Dr.  Bostock,  a  leading  member  of  the  Royal  Society  ;  Mr.  Hogg, 
who  is  about  publishing  his  "  Travels  in  the  East,"  and  who  told  us 
many  pleasant  stories  of  Lady  Hester  Stanhope,  etc.  In  the  evening 
several  of  the  Aikin  family  came  in,  and  I  confess  I  looked  with 
some  interest  on  the  "  Charles "  of  Mrs.  Barbauld's  "  Evenings  at 
Home,"  though  he  came  with  a  wig  and  two  daughters,  one  of  whom 
has  made  him  already  a  grandfather. 

July  21.  —  At  half  past  four  I  returned  to  the  House  of  Commons,* 
to  hear  the  great  debate  of  the  session,  the  debate  on  the  Church 
question  of  Ireland,  in  which  the  Ministry  are  to  vindicate  the  wis 
dom  of  the  resolution  on  which  they  turned  out  the  Tories,  and  in 
which  Sir  R.  Peel  and  his  friends  hope  seriously,  in  their  turn,  to 
overthrow  their  successful  adversaries.  It  will  be  a  hardly  fought 
field,  and  it  is  already  anticipated  that  the  contest  —  contrary  to  the 
old  habits  of  the  House — will  be  protracted  through  several  nights. t 

When  I  arrived  the  Speaker  was  not  in  the  chair,  and  the  House,  in 
committee,  was  considering  a  case  of  divorce,  and  examining  two  or 
three  female  witnesses.  Nothing  could  well  be  more  disorderly  than 
the  whole  proceedings.  Parts  of  them  were  indecent ;  and,  at  the 
best,  there  was  much  talking,  laughing,  and  walking  about ;  no  atten 
tion  paid  to  the  business  in  hand,  or  to  the  speakers,  though  O'Con- 
nell,  Spring  Rice,  and  some  other  men  of  mark  were  among  them  ; 
and  as  for  dignity,  deference,  or  propriety  of  any  sort,  it  was  evidently 
a  matter  not  heeded  at  all.  I  sat,  as  a  foreigner,  on  the  floor,  and  had 
a  most  truly  comfortable  place  ;  and  talked  quite  at  my  ease,  without 
suppressing  my  voice  at  all,  with  the  members  whom  I  knew,  or  to 

whom  I  was  introduced Finally,  when  Peel  rose  to  open  the 

debate  in  earnest,  the  House  could  be  said  to  attend  to  the  business 
before  it.  And  well  they  might,  for  it  was  worth  listening  to,  from 
the  very  business-like  air  with  which  it  was  managed. 

Sir  Robert  is  now  between  fifty  and  sixty,  growing  stout  without 

*  Having  been  there  two  hours  before,  merely  to  see  the  hall. 

t  On  Friday,  July  24,  Mr.  Ticknor  adds  the  two  following  notes :  ' '  The  debate 
lasted  three  nights,  and  was  decided  this  morning  between  three  and  four  o'clock 
by  a  majority  of  thirty-seven  against  Sir  R.  Peel. "  —  "  I  saw  Mr.  Harness  when  we 
were  visiting  the  hall  of  the  House  of  Commons  on  Tuesday  last,  at  two  o'clock, 
waiting  to  get  into  the  gallery,  where  he  remained  till  two  in  the  morning,  as 
closely  wedged  in  as  human  bodies  could  be  packed.  This  he  endiired  three 
successive  days  and  nights,  to  hear  the  debate.  But  nobody  except  an  English 
man  would  have  gone  thnragh  it,  I  think." 


M.  43.]  SIR  ROBERT  PEEL.  417 

being  corpulent,  and  a  fine,  easy,  manly-looking  gentleman.  He  was 
dressed  in  white  pantaloons,  a  blue  surtout  coat,  and  a  black  cravat. 
He  rarely  faced  the  speaker,  but  turned  to  the  body  of  the  House. 
He  had  a  vast  mass  of  documents  and  notes,  but  did  not  refer  to  them 
very  often.  His  opening  was  conciliatory,  but  somewhat  vehement. 
As  he  went  on  he  grew  more  vehement,  too  much  so,  I  thought,  for 
the  verv  business-like  tone  of  his  speech.  Sometimes  he  was  sportive  ; 
once  or  twice,  only,  sarcastic  ;  and  even  then  I  thought  him  judicious. 
He  was  always  easy,  always  self-possessed,  went  with  consummate 
skill  over  the  weak  parts  of  his  cause,  and  felt  his  position  in  the 
House  exactly,  and  showed  unvarying  and  sure  tact  in  managing  and 
playing  with  it.  He  was  cheered  a  great  deal  too  often  ;  sometimes  at 
the  end  of  every  sentence  for  five  or  six  successively,  so  as  to  inter 
rupt  him  from  going  on,  and  occasionally  with  such  vociferation  that 
it  was  absolutely  as  bad  as  at  a  theatre. 

But,  after  all,  he  did  not  produce  on  me  or  leave  with  me  the  im 
pression  of  a  mind  of  the  first,  or  —  may  I  dare  to  say  it  1  —  of  the 
second  order  ;  and  I  have  no  more  doubt  than  I  have  of  anything 
else  within  my  personal  experience,  that  I  have  heard,  both  in  Eng 
land  and  in  America,  intellectual  efforts  of  statesmanship  quite  be 
yond  any  Sir  E.  Peel  can  make.  But  I  do  not  know  that  I  have  ever 
seen  a  man  who  had  more  skill  and  practice  in  managing  a  delibera 
tive  assembly  ;  and  perhaps  this  is  the  highest  praise  a  political  leader 
may  now  seek  in  the  House  of  Commons. 

One  thing  struck  me  a  good  deal.  If  he  made  a  happy  hit,  so  that 
the  House  cheered  or  laughed,  he  did  not  once  fail,  as  soon  as  the 
laughing  or  cheering  had  subsided,  to  amplify  upon  it,  and  substan 
tially  to  repeat  it.  But  he  did  it  ingeniously  always,  and  sometimes 
with  considerable  effect ;  though,  I  think,  in  a  person  of  less  influence 
and  name,  it  would  occasionally  have  been  thought  an  undignified 
trick.  Eloquence,  however,  no  longer  works  miracles.  Before  seven 
in  the  evening  I  saw  eleven  members  of  the  House  sound  asleep  at 
one  time,  notwithstanding  the  cheering. 

I  did  not  stay  to  hear  anybody  else,  but  went  to  join  Mrs.  T.  at  a 
very  pleasant  ladies'  dinner-party  at  Dr.  Ferguson's,  where  I  met  Mr. 
McNeill  and  his  wife,  the  sister  of  John  Wilson,  who  have  been  in 
Persia,  connected  with  the  British  mission  there,  twelve  years,  and 
were  both  of  them,  especially  the  husband,  full  of  vigorous  talent  and 
a  various  information  very  curious  so  far  west. 

July  22.  —  "We  had  an  extremely  agreeable  breakfast  this  morn 
ing.  Mr.  Sydney  Smith,  whom  I  had  asked  a  few  days  ago,  and  who 
18*  AA 


418  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1835. 

did  not  come,  now  volunteered,  and  I  added  my  friend  Kenyon,  and 
Henry  Taylor.*  Mr.  Smith  was  in  great  spirits,  and  amused  us  exces 
sively  by  his  peculiar  humor.  I  do  not  know,  indeed,  that  anything 
can  exceed  it,  so  original,  so  unprepared,  so  fresh.  Taylor  said  little, 
but  Kenyon  produced  quite  an  impression  on  Mr.  Smith,  who  was 
surprised  as  well  as  pleased,  for  they  knew  each  other  very  little  be 
fore.  It  was  a  rare  enjoyment. 

When  it  was  over  we  went  regularly  to  see  some  of  the  London 

sights,  which  all  strangers  must  see We  arrived  at  home  just 

in  season  to  dress  ourselves,  and  reach  Kent  House  before  dinner, 
Avhere  we  had  a  most  agreeable  and  quiet  time,  dining  without  com 
pany,  with  Mrs.  Villiers  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Lister,  excellent  and  pleas 
ant  people,  the  two  last  well  known  by  their  lively  books,  which 
have  been  reprinted  in  America.  While  A.  was  listening  to  Mrs. 
Lister's  music,  and  looking  over  her  beautiful  drawings,  I  made  a 
short  visit  at  Lord  Holland's,  thus  making  the  range  of  our  day's 
work  extend  from  ten  in  the  morning  to  eleven  at  night,  and  from 
the  Thames  Tunnel  to  Holland  House,  a  space  of  nine  miles. 

On  the  25th  of  July,  after  these  three  weeks  of  excitement 
and  fatigue,  Mr.  Ticknor  set  out  with  his  family  for  a  tour 
through  England  and  Wales,  which,  with  the  modes  of  travel 
ling  then  in  use,  consumed  much  more  time  than  would  now  be 
employed,  but  was,  perhaps,  all  the  more  charming  where  every 
step  was  full  of  interest.  Mr.  Ticknor  had  purchased  a  large 
travelling-carriage,  more  like  the  covered  "  drag  "  of  the  present 
day  than  like  any  other  vehicle  now  seen,  and,  foreseeing  a  long 
use  for  it,  had  caused  it  to  be  fitted  with  many  comforts  and 
conveniences  which  English  ingenuity  provided  for  such  de 
mands.  In  this,  always  with  four  post-horses,  he  travelled  for 
the  next  two  years  and  a  half,  till  it  had  become  like  a  family 
mansion,  to  be  at  last  given  up  with  regret. 

On  the  26th  of  July  Mr.  Ticknor  thus  describes  a  visit  to 
Miss  Mitford,  in  the  neighborhood  of  Reading :  — 

JOURNAL. 

We  found  Miss  Mitford  living  literally  in  a  cottage,  neither  orn/e 
nor  poetical,  —  except  inasmuch  as  it  had  a  small  garden  crowded 

*  Author  of  "Philip  Van  Artevelde." 


JR.  44.]  DUBLIN.  419 

with  the  richest  and  most  beautiful  profusion  of  flowers,  —  where  she 
lives  with  her  father,  a  fresh,  stout  old  man  who  is  in  his  seventy- 
fifth  year.  She  herself  seemed  about  fifty,  short  and  fat,  with  very 
gray  hair,  perfectly  visible  under  her  cap,  and  nicely  arranged  in 
front.  She  has  the  simplest  and  kindest  manners,  and  entertained 
us  for  two  hours  with  the  most  animated  conversation  and  a  great 
variety  of  anecdote,  without  any  of  the  pretensions  of  an  author  by 
profession,  and  without  any  of  the  stiffness  that  generally  belongs  to 
single  ladies  of  her  age  and  reputation.  We  liked  her  very  much, 
and  the  time  seemed  to  have  been  short,  when  at  ten  o'clock  we 
drove  back  to  Reading.* 

From  Eeading  the  route  led  through  Gloucester  to  the  Wye, 
through  Wales  to  Holyhead,  and  so  across  to  Dublin,  where 
the  party  arrived  on  the  9th  of  August,  in  time  for  the  meeting 
of  the  British  Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Science. 

Aiigust  10. —  There  is  a  great  bustle  in  Dublin  to-day  with  the 
opening  of  the  fifth  meeting  of  the  British  Association  for  the 
Advancement  of  Science,  to  attend  which,  I  am  told,  a  thousand 
persons  are  already  present.  Everything,  however,  seems  to  be  well 
prepared,  and  made  especially  comfortable  and  agreeable  to  those 
strangers  who  come  from  a  distance.  The  place  where  all  arrange 
ments  are  made  is  the  large,  fine  examination-hall  in  Trinity  College, 
where  tickets  are  obtained,  and  a  common  lounge  and  exchange  is 
held  in  the  morning  from  nine  to  eleven.  At  eleven  the  sections  are 

opened To-day,  for  instance,  Sir  John  Ross  expounded  a 

theory  of  the  Aurora  Borealis,  in  the  physical  section,  and  Sir  John 
Franklin  with  others  entered  into  the  discussion  about  it.  Professor 
Griffiths  explained  the  geology  of  Ireland  in  the  geological  section, 
and  Professor  Sedgwick  of  Cambridge,  Mr.  Murchison,  and  other 
distinguished  men  in  the  same  department  continued  the  discussion, 
and  so  on.  ....  As  a  stranger  from  a  great  distance,  I  had  free 
tickets  for  the  whole  week  presented  to  me.  In  the  evening,  at  eight 
o'clock,  the  whole  body,  with  the  ladies  of  the  stranger  members  — 
there  is  not  room  for  more  —  meet  in  the  rotunda,  a  superb  room, 
every  other  evening,  hold  a  conversazione  and  discussions,  and  on  the 
other  evening  have  papers  read  and  reports  from  the  heads  of  the 
sections  as  to  what  their  respective  sections  have  done 

This  evening  Sir  Thomas  Brisbane,  the  President  of  the  Associa 
tion  last  year,  —  a  soldier  who  has  circumnavigated  the  world  four 

*  Miss  Mitford  mentions  this  visit  in  a  letter  given  in  her  Memoirs. 


420  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1835. 

times,  and  is  distinguished  both  in  science  and  as  an  officer, — took  the 
chair,  and  in  a  frank,  neat  speech  resigned  it  to  his  successor,  the 
Provost  of  Trinity  College,  ....  who  gave  a  discussion  about  the 
reconciliation  of  geology  and  the  Scriptures,  which  was  delivered  in 
so  low  a  voice  that  almost  nobody  heard  it.  Of  course  we  soon  — 
after  in  vain  endeavoring  to  listen : —  began  to  talk,  for  which  I  was 
extremely  well  situated,  having  Mr.  Tom  Moore  for  my  next  neigh 
bor.  I  found  him  a  little  fellow,  as  we  all  know  him  to  be,  very 
amiable,  I  should  think,  and  quite  pleasant.  I  enjoyed  it  very 
much,  for  besides  him,  Whewell ;  Sir  John  Franklin  ;  the  Surgeon 
General,  Mr.  Crampton  ;  Weld,  the  traveller  in  America,  and  now 
Secretary  of  the  Dublin  Society  ;  Dr.  Graves,  a  distinguished  physi 
cian  [and  a  professor  in  the  University  of  Dublin],  were  close  to  me. 
The  Lord  Lieutenant  [Lord  Mulgrave]  sat  directly  in  front  of  us, 
dressed  in  a  full  military  uniform  ornamented  with  stars  that  blazed 
with  diamonds  over  his  whole  breast.  He  is  only  thirty-eight  years 
old,  looks  younger,  is  graceful  and  easy  in  his  manners,  and  received 
the  abundant  applause  occasionally  bestowed  on  him  by  the  audience, 
in  a  style  that  quite  became  his  place,  modestly,  but  with  dignity. 
I  was  a  little  surprised  to  find  that  I  had  known  him  as  the  author 
of  "  Matilda "  and  "  Yes  and  No,"  etc.,  under  his  previous  title  of 
Viscount  Normanby 

When  the  Provost  had  finished  his  address,  Professor  Hamilton, 
one  of  the  secretaries  of  the  Association  for  the  year,  rose  and  read 
a  discourse  on  the  objects  of  the  meeting,  the  purposes  of  the  institu 
tion,  and  the  results  of  the  last  year's  labors.  At  the  age  of  twenty- 
seven  he  is  now  the  great  man  here.  When  only  nineteen  he  was 
made  a  Fellow  of  Trinity  and  Mathematical  Professor,  since  which  he 
has  risen  to  be  one  of  the  first  mathematicians  in  Europe.  Besides 
this,  he  is  reported  to  be  a  fine  Greek  scholar,  to  have  an  extremely 
metaphysical  mind,  and  to  write  good  poetry.*  All  I  know  is,  that 
in  a  long  conversation  with  him  this  morning,  I  found  him  pleasant 
and  warm-hearted  ;  and  that  this  evening  he  gave  us  a  beautiful  and 
eloquent  address  of  an  hour  long,  exactly  hitting  the  tone  of  the 
occasion,  and  the  wants  and  feelings  of  a  large  popular  audience.  I 
was  delighted  with  it,  and  it  produced  a  fine  effect. 

August  12.  — .  .  .  .  At  five  I  went  to  the  Ordinary,  provided  for 

*  Upon  a  later  occasion,  Professor  Sedgwick,  as  President  of  the  British 
Association,  in  an  address,  called  him  "  a  man  who  possessed  within  himself 
powers  and  talents  perhaps  never  before  combined  in  one  philosophic  char 
acter." 


M.  44.]  SIR  JOHN  FRANKLIN.  421 

such  members  as  choose  to  take  it  at  five  shillings  a  head,  but  to 
which,  as  a  stranger,  I  have  free  tickets.  The  Provost  of  Trinity 
College  presided,  and  as  the  most  distinguished  men  make  it  a  point 
to  be  there,  it  is  always  pleasant.  Our  party  was  particularly  so, — 
Sir  Alexander  Creighton,  Professor  Graves,  Beaumont,  and  Tocque- 
ville,*  etc.  It  was  all  over,  however,  by  half  past  seven,  for  at  eight 
conies  the  general  meeting  at  the  Eotunda 

August  13.  —  This  morning  I  breakfasted  with  a  small  party  in  the 
Commons  Hall  of  Trinity  College,  the  Provost  presiding.  Whewell, 
Sir  John  Franklin,  and  Wilkie,  the  painter,  were  in  my  imme 
diate  neighborhood,  and  I  conversed  with  all  of  them  a  good  deal. 
Whewell  looks  very  much  like  a  fresh,  undisciplined  Yankee,  but 
talks  freely  and  well.  Wilkie  is  delightful,  so  simple,  so  pleasant, 
and,  when  he  spoke  of  poor  Stewart  Newton,  so  kind  and  true- 
hearted.  Occasionally  he  showed  shrewdness  and  knowledge  of  the 
world,  and  it  is  plain  he  looks  quite  through  the  ways  of  men.  But 
there  is  no  harm  in  this,  for  he  is  certainly  kind. 

Franklin  is  not  tall,  but  he  has  an  ample,  solid,  iron  frame,  and 
his  head  is  singularly  set  back  upon  his  neck,  so  that  he  seems  always 
to  be  looking  up ;  besides  which  he  has  a  cast  in  one  of  his  eyes, 
very  slight,  and  not  always  perceptible.  His  manners  are  not  very 
elegant,  nor  his  style  of  conversation  or  of  public  discussion  very 
polished;  but  he  is  strong,  quick,  graphic,  and  safe 

I  went  to  but  one  section  this  morning ;  the  geological,  where  I 
heard  Agassiz  t  —  from,  I  believe,  Lausanne,  in  Switzerland,  and  re 
puted  one  of  the  first  naturalists  in  the  world  —  discuss  the  question 
of  fossil  remains  of  fishes.  He  did  it  in  French,  plainly,  distinctly, 
and  with  beauty  of  phrase.  He  is  still  young,  and  was  greatly 
applauded,  as  were  Sedgwick  and  Murchison  when  they  followed 
and  eulogized  him.  I  was  very  much  pleased  with  the  whole  scene. 

I  dined  with  Lord  Mulgrave,  the  Lord  Lieutenant,  in  the  Govern 
ment  House,  in  the  magnificent  Phoanix  Park.  I  had  been  for  some 
days  engaged  to  dine  with  Mr.  Litton,  a  leading  member  of  the  bar, 
but  an  invitation  from  the  Viceroy,  like  an  invitation  from  the  King, 

is  in  the  nature  of  a  command The  ceremonies  of  the  dinner 

were  regal.  The  aides-de-camp,  three  in  number,  received  us  in  a  rich 

*  Whom  Mr.  Tickiior  had  already  known  well  in  America. 

t  When  Agassiz  and  Ticknor  became  close  and  faithful  friends,  a  few  years 
after  this,  the  great  naturalist  was  delighted  to  know  that  his  triumph  on  this 
day  had  been  witnessed  by  Mr.  Ticknor  ;  for  he  was  put,  on  that  occasion,  to  a 
test  so  severe  as  to  be  hardly  fair,  and  came  out  of  it  with  perfect  success. 


422  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1835. 

saloon,  which  we  entered  through  a  suite  of  apartments A  few 

minutes  after  seven  there  were  about  twenty-five  persons  in  the  room. 
It  was  an  agreeable  mixture  of  rank  and  fashion  with  the  savants  now 
collected  in  Dublin.  The  Provost  of  Trinity,  as  President  of  the 
Association,  Sir  Thomas  Brisbane,  the  President  of  the  last  year,  Lord 
Cloncurry,  Lord  Clare,  Sir  Alexander  Creighton,  Professor  Robinson, 
Professor  Hamilton,  old  Mr.  Dalton  of  Manchester,  Thomas  Moore, 
Babbage,  a  Norwegian  nobleman,  a  French  baron,  Whewell,  Phillips, 
Prichard,  the  three  aids,  two  or  three  other  persons,  and  myself. 

When  the  company  was  assembled,  Lord  Mulgrave  came  in  and 
went  round,  each  person  being  presented  to  him  as  he  passed.  To 
most  of  them  he  barely  bowed.  To  others  he  spoke,  and  his  manners 
throughout  were  elegant  and  kind.  As  I  had  brought  him  a  letter 
from  Lord  Holland,  he  inquired  about  him,  talked  a  little  about 
America,  and  passed  on.  When  this  ceremony  was  over,  he  mixed 

with  the  company He  came  up  to  where  I  was  standing  with 

Moore,  and  talked  pleasantly  some  time  about  Wilkie,  and  about 
Stewart  Newton,  of  whom  he  spoke  with  interest.  Soon,  however, 

dinner  was  announced.  Lord  Mulgrave  went  in  alone I  sat 

next  to  Sir  John  Franklin,  and  near  Moore,  and  had  a  very  good 
time,  Sir  John  talking  about  his  travels  and  adventures.  There  was 
no  ceremony  at  table.  Lord  Mulgrave  drank  wine  with  a  few  of 
us,  and  was  pleasant  in  conversation,  — "  affable,"  we  should  say  in 
America, — but  not  striking 

August  14.  —  This  morning,  early,  I  drove  out  to  the  Observatory 
and  breakfasted  with  Professor  Hamilton,  taking  in  my  carriage  Pro 
fessor  Whewell  of  Cambridge,  and  Professor  Rigaud  of  Oxford,  who 
much  enlivened  a  drive  five  miles  out  and  in.  Whewell  I  found 
full  of  spirits  and  vivacity,  various  and  amusing  in  conversation,  and 
without  the  least  appearance  of  the  awkwardness  I  saw,  or  supposed 
I  saw,  in  him  at  first.  Professor  Rigaud  was  without  much  humor, 
but  truly  good-tempered  and  agreeable.  We  met  there  Sir  John  Ross, 
a  very  stout,  easy,  quiet  gentleman  of  about  fifty-five,  with  much  of 
the  air  of  a  naval  commander.  While  we  were  in  the  Observatory 
he  compared  with  the  time-keeper  there  the  chronometer  which  had 
been  used  by  Parry,  and  which  had  gone  with  him  through  all  his 
terrible  sufferings. 

Hamilton  himself  was  very  eager,  simple,  and  direct,  but  a  little 
nervous  ;  and  Whewell  made  himself  merry  at  a  discussion  about 
Kant's  philosophy,  in  which  Hamilton  showed  his  metaphysical  acu 
men  against  a  German  at  table,  but  showed,  too,  that  he  was  familiar 


M  44.]  SIR  WILLIAM  ROWAN   HAMILTON.  423 

with  the  labyrinth  of  the  German  writers.  ....  Certainly,  for  one 
only  twenty  seven  or  eight  years  old,  he  is  a  very  extraordinary 
person. 

August  15.  —  ....  In  the  evening,  a  grand  dinner  was  given  by 
the  Provost  and  Senior  Fellows  of  Trinity  College  to  the  Lord  Lieu 
tenant  and  about  three  hundred  of  the  members  of  the  Association. 
It  was  a  beau  finale  to  the  splendid  week  Dublin  has  given  to  so  many 
distinguished  guests.  We  assembled  in  the  imposing  hall  of  Trinity 

Library,  two  hundred  and  eighty  feet  long,  at  six  o'clock When 

the  company  was  principally  assembled,  I  observed  a  little  stir  near 
the  place  where  I  stood,  which  nobody  could  explain,  and  which,  in 
fact,  was  not  comprehended  by  more  than  two  or  three  persons  pres 
ent.  In  a  moment,  however,  I  perceived  myself  standing  near  the 
Lord  Lieutenant  and  his  suite,  in  front  of  whom  a  space  had  been 
cleared,  and  by  whom  was  Professor  Hamilton,  looking  much  embar 
rassed.  The  Lord  Lieutenant  then  called  him  by  name,  and  he  stepped 
into  the  vacant  space. 

"  I  am,"  said  his  Excellency,  "  about  to  exercise  a  prerogative  of 
royalty,  and  it  gives  me  great  pleasure  to  do  it,  on  this  splendid  pub 
lic  occasion,  which  has  brought  together  so  many  distinguished  men 
from  all  parts  of  the  empire,  and  from  all  parts  even  of  the  world, 
where  science  is  held  in  honor.  But,  in  exercising  it,  Professor  Ham 
ilton,  I  do  not  confer  a  distinction.  I  but  set  the  royal,  and,  therefore, 
the  national  mark  on  a  distinction  already  acquired  by  your  genius 
and  labors."  He  went  on  in  this  way  for  three  or  four  minutes,  his 
voice  very  fine,  rich,  and  full ;  his  manner  as  graceful  and  dignified  as 
possible ;  and  his  language  and  allusions  appropriate,  and  combined 
into  very  ample  flowing  sentences. 

Then,  receiving  the  state  sword  from  one  of  his  attendants,  he  said, 
"  Kneel  down,  Professor  Hamilton"  ;  and  laying  the  blade  gracefully 
and  gently,  first  on  one  shoulder,  and  then  on  the  other,  he  said,  "  Rise 
up,  Sir  William  Rowan  Hamilton."  The  knight  rose,  and  the  Lord 
Lieutenant  then  went  up  and,  with  an  appearance  of  great  tact  in  his 
manner,  shook  hands  with  him.  No  reply  was  made.  The  whole 
scene  was  imposing  ;  rendered  so,  partly,  by  the  ceremony  itself, 
but  more  by  the  place  in  which  it  passed,  by  the  body  of  very  distin 
guished  men  who  were  assembled  there,  and  especially  by  the  extraor 
dinarily  dignified  and  beautiful  manner  in  which  it  was  performed 
by  the  Lord  Lieutenant.  The  effect  at  the  time  was  great,  and  the 
general  impression  was,  that,  as  the  honor  was  certainly  merited  by 
him  who  received  it,  so  the  words  by  which  it  was  conferred  were  so 


424:  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1835. 

graceful  and  appropriate  that  they  constituted  a  distinction  by  them 
selves,  greater  than  the  distinction  of  knighthood.  I  was  afterwards 
told  that  this  was  the  first  instance  in  which  a  person  had  been  knighted 
by  a  Lord  Lieutenant,  either  for  scientific  or  literary  merit. 

The  dinner  was  in  the  great  hall  for  public  examinations,  and  was 
abundant  and  beautiful,  in  better  order,  and  more  quiet,  than  any 
public  dinner  I  ever  witnessed.  It  was  even  rechercM  in  the  food, 
wines,  ices,  and  fruits,  among  which  last  they  had  the  costly  luxury 
of  peaches  and  pine-apples,  grown  of  course  entirely  under  glass,  and 

furnished  in  great  profusion A  Latin  grace  and  thanks  were 

sung,  with  great  beauty  and  sweetness,  by  the  College  choir,  which 
has  the  reputation  of  being  the  best  in  the  three  kingdoms. 

Augvat  16.  —  I  dined  with  the  Lord  Lieutenant,  driving  again 
through  that  magnificent  park,  two  or  three  miles,  to  reach  the  Lodge. 
It  was  a  small  party,  consisting  only  of  two  ladies,  who  seemed  to 
be  connections  of  Lord  Mulgrave  ;  the  usual  proportion  of  aides- 
de-camp  and  secretaries  ;  Mr.  Harcourt  of  York  ;  Mr.  Stanley  of  the 
Derby  family ;  Mr.  Vignolles,  one  of  the  chaplains  ;  Wilkie,  the 
painter  ;  and  myself.  ....  When  Lord  Mulgrave  came  in  he  spoke 
to  every  one,  not  ceremoniously,  as  he  did  the  other  day,  but  very 
familiarly.  He  sat  down  first,  asked  us  to  be  seated,  and  talked 
very  agreeably ;  was  evidently  pleased  to  find  that  his  books  had 
been  printed  and  read  in  America,  and  said  that  he  still  had  a  par 
ticular  liking  for  his  old  title  of  Lord  Normanby,  under  which  he 

wrote  them 

After  the  ladies  had  left  the  table  he  became  very  pleasant  in  con 
versation,  telling  amusing  stories,  ....  and  talking  about  the  present 
condition  of  Dublin  and  its  progressive  improvement  with  apparently 
much  knowledge  of  facts  and  a  deep  interest.  He  certainly  talked 
uncommonly  well We  came  away  bringing  with  us  all,  I  be 
lieve,  the  impression  he  seems  to  leave  everywhere,  that  of  a  high 
bred  nobleman  and  an  intellectually  accomplished  gentleman. 

August  17.  — '-  We  left  Dublin  this  morning  for  an  excursion  into  the 
county  of  Wicklow,  ....  and  in  about  an  hour  reached  the  hospi 
table  mansion  of  Mr.  Isaac  Weld,  the  former  traveller  in  America, 
now  the  Secretary  of  the  Dublin  Society,  which  his  labors  have  chiefly 
made  what  it  now  is,  and  one  of  the  most  efficient  persons  in  all  the 
arrangements  and  proceedings  of  the  last  busy  and  exciting  week. 
He  is,  I  suppose,  above  sixty  years  old,  with  a  quiet  but  rather  earnest 
look  and  manner,  and  belongs  to  the  old  Catholic  family  of  Welds  in 
England,  of  which  the  present  Cardinal  Weld  is  a  leading  member. 


M.  44.]  VISIT  IN  THE  COUNTRY.  425 

....  Mr.  Weld  is  a  man  of  moderate  fortune,  much  connected  with 
whatever  is  distinguished  for  intelligence  and  science  in  Ireland,  and 
author  of  several  books  and  many  papers  in  their  Transactions  ;  but 
his  "  Travels  in  America  "  was  a  youthful  production,  ....  for  the 
opinions  of  which,  touching  the  United  States,  he  expressed  his  re 
gret,  as  mistaken. 

Soon  after  we  had  established  ourselves  in  our  very  comfortable 
quarters  at  Ravenswell,  his  place  near  the  village  of  Bray,  ....  we 
set  off  for  a  dejeuner  and  fete  champetre  given  by  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Putland. 
....  A  great  many  of  the  members  of  the  Association  had  stayed 
another  day  to  be  present  at  it,  and  we  saw  again  there -Sir  John  Ross, 
Tom  Moore,  Wilkie,  Lady  Morgan,  Dr.  Sands,  Sir  John  Tobin,  Dr. 
Lardner,*  and  many  more  most  agreeable  people. 

....  At  six  o'clock  we  returned  to  Mr.  Weld's  and  found  dinner 

ready There  were  soon  collected  the  Taylors,t  Sir  William 

Hamilton,^  Sir  John  and  Lady  Franklin,  and  several  other  interesting 
people,  with  whom  we  passed  a  delightful  evening. 

*  One  evening,  during  the  meeting  in  Dublin,  Mr.  Ticknor  heard  Dr.  Lardner 
make  the  well-known  discourse  in  which  he  pronounced  it  to  be  impossible  that 
a  steamboat  should  ever  cross  the  ocean  ;  but  though  he  often  referred  to  this 
assertion  afterwards,  it  did  not  so  much  impress  him  at  the  time  as  to  induce 
him  to  remark  on  it  in  his  journal. 

t  Previously  mentioned  by  Mr.  Ticknor  as  "  Mr.  John  Taylor,  the  geologist, 
and  main  authority  upon  whatever  is  done  in  mining  in  England  and  elsewhere, 
with  his  wife  and  two  pleasant  daughters."  Mr.  Ticknor  and  his  family  made 
a  short  visit,  ten  days  later,  at  the  Taylors'  pretty  place,  Coeddhu,  in  Wales, 
beside  a  visit  at  St.  Asaph's. 

J  Sir  William  Hamilton  sent  Mr.  Ticknor,  as  a  parting  souvenir,  a  copy  of  a 
sonnet,  written  by  him  on  the  occasion  of  his  receiving  the  honor  of  knight 
hood,  just  described,  which  Mr.  Ticknor  always  regarded  as  one  of  the  finest 
sonnets  in  the  English  language.  It  has  since  appeared  in  an  article  on  the 
character  and  genius  of  this  very  extraordinary  man,  in  the  "  Dublin  University 
Magazine  "  for  January,  1842. 


426  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1835. 


CHAPTER   XXII. 

Edgeworthtoum.  —  English  Lakes.  —  York.  —  Doncaster.  —  Wentworth 

House. 

JOURNAL. 

August  21.  —  We  set  out  pretty  early  this  morning  to  make  a  visit, 
by  invitation,  to  the  Edgeworths,  at  Edgeworthtown,  sixty-five  Eng 
lish  miles  from  Dublin The  whole  country  we  passed  through 

was  like  a  succession  of  prairies,  so  little  inequality  was  there  in 
the  surface,  and  it  was  only  at  rare  intervals  we  even  saw  any  tol 
erably  sized  hills  in  the  horizon.  Nor  were  the  objects  on  the  road 

more  various The  ruins  of  an  old  castle  of  the  Leinsters,  at 

Maynooth,  two  mounds,  which  were  probably  burial-places  of  the 
aborigines,  a  good  many  ruined  churches,  and  a  good  many  villages, 
some  very  squalid  and  wretched,  and  some  as  comfortable  as  the 
poorer  Scotch  hamlets,  were  all  we  noticed 

At  last  we  approached  the  house.  There  was  no  mistaking  it.  We 
had  seen  none  such  for  a  long  time.  It  is  spacious,  with  an  am 
ple  veranda,  and  conservatory  covering  part  of  its  front  quite  beauti 
fully,  and  situated  in  a  fine  lawn  of  the  richest  green,  interspersed 
with  clumps  of  venerable  oaks  and  beeches.  As  we  drove  to  the 
door  Miss  Edgeworth  came  out  to  meet  us,  —  a  small,  short,  spare 
lady  of  about  sixty-seven,  with  extremely  frank  and  kind  manners, 
and  who  always  looks  straight  into  your  face  with  a  pair  of  mild,  deep 
gray  eyes,  whenever  she  speaks  to  you.  With  her  characteristic 
directness,  she  did  not  take  us  into  the  library  until  she  had  told 
us  that  we  should  find  there  Mrs.  Alison  of  Edinburgh,  and  her 
aunt,  Miss  Sneyd,*  a  person  very  old  and  infirm  ;  and  that  the  only 
other  persons  constituting  the  family  were  Mrs.  Edgeworth,t  Miss 

*  Aunt  by  courtesy,  since  Miss  Maria  Edgeworth  was  the  only  surviving  child 
of  the  first  Mrs.  Edgeworth,  a  Miss  Elers  ;  while  Miss  Sneyd  was  sister  to  the 
second  and  third  wives  of  Richard  Lovell  Edgeworth. 

t  Fourth  wife  of  Mr.  Edgeworth,  Miss  Beaufort,  sister  of  Sir  Francis  Beau- 
fort. 


M.  44.]  VISIT  TO  EDGEWORTHTOWN.  427 

Honora  Eclgeworth,*  and  Dr.  Alison,  a  physician,  and  son  of  the  author 
on  "  Taste."  Having  thus  put  us  en  pays  de  connaissance,  she  carried 
us  into  the  library.  It  is  quite  a  krge  room,  full  of  books,  and  every 
way  comfortable  as  a  sitting-room.  We  had  not  been  there  five  min 
utes  before  we  were,  by  her  kindness  and  vivacity,  put  complete]  v 
at  our  ease,  a  sensation  which  we  do  not  seem  likely  to  lose  during 
our  visit.  Soon  after  we  were  seated  and  had  become  a  little  ac 
quainted  with  Mrs.  Alison,  —  who  is  a  daughter  of  the  famous  Dr. 
Gregory,  —  the  rest  of  the  party  came  in  from  a  drive. 

Mrs.  Edge  worth  —  who  is  of  the  Beaufort  family  —  seems  about  the 
age  of  her  more  distinguished  step-daughter,  and  is  somewhat  stout, 
but  very  active,  intelligent,  and  accomplished,  having  apparently  the 
whole  care  of  the  household,  and  adding  materially,  by  her  resources 
in  the  arts  and  in  literature,  to  its  agreeableness.t  .... 

It  is  plain  they  make  a  harmonious  whole,  and  by  those  who  visited 
here  when  the  family  was  much  larger,  and  composed  of  the  children 
of  all  the  wives  of  Mr.  Edgeworth,  with  their  connections  produced 
by  marriage,  so  as  to  form  the  most  heterogeneous  relationships,  I  am 
told  there  was  always  the  same  very  striking  union  and  agreeable 
intercourse  among  them  all,  to  the  number  sometimes  of  fifteen  or 
twenty 

After  sitting  about  an  hour  in  the  library  ....  we  went  to  dress, 
and  punctually  at  half  past  six  were  summoned  by  the  bell  to  dinner. 
....  At  half  past  eight  we  rejoined  the  ladies  in  the  library,  which 
seems  to  be  the  only  sitting-room  ;  at  nine  we  had  tea  and  coffee,  and 
at  half  past  ten  went  to  bed What  has  struck  me  most  to 
day  in  Miss  Edgeworth  herself,  is  her  uncommon  quickness  of  per 
ception,  her  fertility  of  allusion,  and  the  great  resources  of  fact  which 
a  remarkable  memory  supplies  to  her,  combined  into  a  whole  which 
I  can  call  nothing  else  but  extraordinary  vivacity.  She  certainly 
talks  quite  as  well  as  Lady  Delacour  or  Lady  Davenant,  and  much 
in  the  style  of  both  of  them,  though  more  in  that  of  Lady  Dave 
nant 

August  22.  —  It  has  been  a  rainy  day  to-day,  the  first,  properly  so, 

*  Daughter  of  the  third  Mrs.  Edgeworth. 

t  In  her  note  of  invitation,  though  writing  to  strangers,  Miss  Edgeworth  said 
to  Mr.  Ticknor :  "  The  sooner  you  can  come  to  us,  if  I  might  suggest,  the  better, 
because  Mrs.  Edgeworth  is  now  at  home  with  us,  ....  as  you  would  find  this 
house  much  more  agreeable  when  she  is  at  home  ;  and  in  truth  you  never  could 
see  it  to  advantage,  or  see  things  as  they  really  are  in  this  family,  unless  when 
she  makes  part  of  it,  and  when  she  is  at  the  head  of  it." 


428  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1835. 

that  we  have  had  since  we  left  Liverpool,  nearly  two  months  ago.  I 
was  heartily  glad  of  it,  for  it  prevented  all  talk  of  driving  into  a  coun 
try  essentially  flat  and  uninteresting,  and  kept  us  in  the  most  inter 
esting  and  agreeable  society.  We  did  not  really  separate  during  the 
whole  day,  from  breakfast,  at  nine,  until  bedtime,  half  after  eleven. 
The  whole  time  was  passed  in  the  library,  except  the  breakfast,  which 
was  protracted  to  an  hour's  length  by  sitting  round  the  table  ;  lunch, 
which  is  really  the  dinner  of  most  people ;  .  .  .  .  and  dinner  itself, 
from  half  past  six  to  half  past  eight. 

Miss  Edgeworth's  conversation  was  always  ready,  and  as  full  of 
vivacity  and  variety  as  I  can  imagine.  It  was,  too,  no  less  full  of 
good-nature.  She  was  disposed  to  defend  everybody,  even  Lady 
Morgan,  as  far  as  she  could,  though  never  so  far  as  to  be  unreason 
able  ;  and  in  her  intercourse  with  her  family  she  was  quite  delightful, 
referring  constantly  to  Mrs.  Edgeworth,  who  seems  to  be  the  authority 
in  all  matters  of  fact,  and  most  kindly  repeating  jokes  to  her  infirm 
aunt,  Miss  Sneyd,  who  cannot  hear  them,  and  who  seems  to  have  for 
her  the  most  unbounded  affection  and  admiration. 

About  herself,  as  an  author,  she  seems  to  have  no  reserve  or  secrets. 
She  spoke  with  great  kindness  and  pleasure  of  a  letter  I  brought  to 
her  from  Mr.  Peabody,*  explaining  some  passage  in  his  review  of 
"  Helen-,"  which  had  troubled  her  from  its  allusion  to  her  father  ; 
"  but,"  she  added,  "  nobody  can  know  what  I  owe  to  my  father  ;  he 
advised  and  directed  me  in  everything  ;  I  never  could  have  done  any 
thing  without  him.  These  are  things  I  cannot  be  mistaken  about, 
though  other  people  can,  —  I  know  them."  As  she  said  this,  the  tears 
stood  in  her  eyes,  and  her  whole  person  was  moved. 

Of  "Helen,"  she  said  that  it  was  a  recent  conception  altogether, 
first  imagined  about  two  years  before  it  was  printed.  The  Colling- 
woods,  she  said,  were  a  clumsy  part  of  it ;  she  put  them  in,  thinking 
to  make  something  of  them,  but  was  disappointed,  and  there  they 
stuck,  she  could  not  get  them  out  again.  Many  parts  of  it  were 
much  altered ;  two  only  were  printed  just  as  they  were  first  put  on 
paper,  with  hardly  the  correction  of  a  word,  —  Lady  Davenant's 
conversation  with  Helen  in  the  pony  phaeton,  and  Lady  Cecilia's 
conversation  with  Helen  towards  the  end,  telling  her  all  that  had 
happened  during  their  separation.  These  two  portions  she  said  she 
dictated  to  her  sister  Lucy,  whom  she  represented  to  be  a  person 
of  sure  taste.  She  dictated  these  particular  passages  because,  as  they 

*  Rev.  William  0.  B.  Peabody.  The  article  appeared  in  the  "  North  Ameri 
can  Review,"  No.  84,  July,  1834. 


^E.  44.]  MISS   EDGEWORTH.  429 

were  to  represent  narrative  conversation,  she  thought  this  mode  of 
composing  them  would  give  them  a  more  natural  air,  and  whenever 
her  sister's  pen  hesitated,  she  altered  the  word  at  once.  "  So,"  said 
she,  "  all  that  turned  out  right,  and  I  was  very  glad  of  it  for  Lucy's 
sake  as  well  as  my  own." 

"Taking  for  Granted,"  she  told  me,  was  sketched  very  roughly 
about  fifteen  years  ago,  and  she  is  now  employed  in  working  it  en 
tirely  over  again,  and  bringing  it  out.  She  was  curious  to  know  what 
instances  I  had  ever  witnessed  of  persons  suffering  from  "taking 
for  granted  "  what  proved  false,  and  desired  me  quite  earnestly,  and 
many  times,  to  write  to  her  about  it ;  "  for,"  she  added,  "  you  would 
be  surprised  if  you  knew  how  much  I  pick  up  in  this  way."  "  The 
story,"  she  said,  "  must  begin  lightly,  and  the  early  instances  of  mis 
take  might  be  comic,  but  it  must  end  tragically."  I  told  her  I  was 
sorry  for  it.  "Well,"  said  she,  " I  can't  help  it,  it  must  be  so.  The 
best  I  can  do  for  you  is,  to  leave  it  quite  uncertain  whether  it  is  pos 
sible  the  man  who  is  to  be  my  victim  can  ever  be  happy  again  or 
not." 

But  neither  "  Helen"  nor  "  Taking  for  Granted,"  she  said,  is  the 
subject  she  should  be  glad  to  write  about,  and  write  about  with  the 
most  interest.  It  is  something  connected  with  the  religious  and  po 
litical  parties  that  are  ruining  Ireland,  "  my  poor  Ireland."  "  But," 
she  went  on,  "  it  won't  do.  Few  would  listen,  and  those  that  would 
listen  would  do  it  to  serve  their  own  purposes.  It  won't  do,  and  I  am 
sorry  for  it,  very  sorry." 

But  though  she  talked  thus  freely  about  herself  and  her  works,  she 
never  introduced  the  subject,  and  never  seemed  glad  to  continue  it. 
She  talked  quite  as  well,  and  with  quite  as  much  interest,  on  every 
thing  else.  Indeed,  though  I  watched  carefully  for  it,  I  could  not 
detect,  on  the  one  side,  any  of  the  mystification  of  authorship,  nor,  on 
the  other,  any  of  its  vanity The  sustained  tone  of  conversa 
tion,  however,  with  her  unquenchable  vivacity,  was,  I  think,  —  con 
tinued  as  it  was  through  so  long  a  day,  —  a  little  fatiguing  to  her. 
She  was  just  the  same  to  the  last  moment, — just  as  quick  in  repartee, 
and  just  as  gay  in  her  allusions  and  remarks,  —  but  her  countenance 
showed  that  her  physical  strength  was  hardly  equal  to  it.  Indeed, 
she  is  of  a  feeble  constitution  naturally,  though  for  the  last  two  years 
she  has  gained  strength.  It  was,  therefore,  something  of  a  trial  to 
talk  so  brilliantly  and  variously  as  she  did,  from  nine  in  the  morning 
till  past  eleven  at  night. 

Sunday,  August  23.  —  To-day  was  more  quiet ;  not  less  interesting 


430  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1835. 

or  agreeable  than  yesterday,  but  less  exciting.  We  went  to  church 
with  the  family,  who  all  seemed  Episcopalians  in  principle  and  prac 
tice.  Miss  Edgeworth  carried  her  favorite  Prayer-book  in  a  nice  case, 
and  knelt  and  made  all  the  responses  very  devoutly.  The  church  ia 
small,  but  neat,  and  their  pew  is  the  place  of  honor  in  it,  with  a  can 
opy  and  recess  as  large  as  any  two  other  pews.  ....  On  one  side  of 
the  altar  was  a  small,  plain,  oval  tablet,  to  the  memory  of  their  grand 
father,  bearing  no  inscription  but  his  name,  and  the  time  of  his  birth 
and  death  ;  and  on  the  other  side  was  one  exactly  like  it,  ....  to 
their  father,  who  died  in  1817.  The  whole  had  the  air  of  decency 
and  reverence  that  ought  always  to  be  found  in  a  village  church  ;  but 
the  sermon  was  Calvinistic,  from  a  young  man,  and  the  congregation 
very  small,  making  a  striking  contrast  to  the  congregation  which 
poured  out  from  the  Catholic  chapel  in  the  neighborhood,  so  as  to  fill 
and  throng  the  highway. 

The  Edgeworths  have  always  been  on  the  most  kindly  terms  with 
their  Catholic  neighbors  and  tenantry,  but,  like  many  other  Protest 
ants  whom  I  have  met,  they  feel  rather  uncomfortably  at  the  en 
croaching  spirit  which  the  Emancipation  Bill  has  awakened  in  the 
whole  Catholic  population  of  the  island,  and  the  exclusive  character 
and  tone  assumed  by  the  priests,  who  have  every  day,  as  they  assure 
me,  more  and  more  the  air  of  claiming  superiority  ;  especially  where, 
as  in  the  case  of  Edgeworthtown,  the  old  priests  have  been  removed, 
and  Jesuits  placed  in  their  stead. 

After  lunch,  —  there  is  only  one  service  in  the  church,  —  Miss 
Edgeworth  showed  me  a  good  many  curious  letters-  from  Dumont,  — 
one  in  particular,  giving  an  account  of  Madame  de  Stael's  visit,  in 
1813,  to  Lord  Lansdowne  at  Bowood,  for  a  week,  when  Mackintosh, 
Romilly,  Schlegel,  Eogers,  and  a  quantity  more  of  distinguished  peo 
ple  were  there ;  but  Miss  Edgeworth  declined,  not  feeling  apparently 
willing  to  live  in  a  state  of  continual  exhibition  for  so  long  a  time. 
It  was,  however,  very  brilliant,  and  was  most  brilliantly  described  by 
Dumont.  One  thing  amused  me  very  much.  Madame  de  Stael,  who 
had  just  been  reading  the  "  Tales  of  Fashionable  Life,"  —  then  recently 
published,  —  with  great  admiration,  said  to  Dumont  of  Miss  Edge- 
worth  :  "  Vraiment  elle  etait  digne  de  1'enthousiasme,  mais  elle  se  perd 
dans  votre  triste  utilite."  It  seemed  to  delight  Miss  Edgeworth  ex 
cessively,  and  it  was  to  show  me  this  that  she  looked  up  the  letters. 

In  the  evening  she  showed  me  her  long  correspondence  with  Sir 
Walter  Scott,  at  least  his  part  of  it.  The  whole  seemed  to  have  been 
extremely  creditable  to  both  parties.  As  soon  as  "Waverley"  was 


M.  44.]  MISS  EDGEWORTH  AND  SCOTT.  431 

published,  she  wrote  a  letter  to  its  anonymous  author,  filled  with  the 
fulness  of  her  fresh  delight,  which  she  enclosed  to  Ballantyne,  who 
answered  it  on  behalf  of  the  Great  Unknown.  This  was  the  begin 
ning  of  the  matter.  Soon  after,  they  wrote  directly  to  each  other; 
she  went  to  see  Scott ;  young  Walter  and  his  new  wife  were  sent  to 
her  as  to  an  intimate  friend,  immediately  after  their  marriage.  Sir 
Walter  wrote  to  her,  also,  on  his  loss  of  fortune,  and  the  correspond 
ence  was  continued  till  his  mind  failed.  When  she  was  in  Edinburgh, 
in  1823,  Lady  Scott  expressed  her  surprise  that  Scott  and  Miss  Edge- 
worth  had  not  met  when  Miss  Edgeworth  was  in  Edinburgh  in  1803. 
"  Why,"  said  Sir  Walter,  with  one  of  his  queer  looks,  "  you  forget, 
my  dear,  —  Miss  Edgeworth  was  not  a  lion  then,  and  my  mane,  you 
know,  was  not  grown  at  all."  She  told  many  stories  of  him,  all  show 
ing  an  admiration  for  him,  and  a  personal  interest  in  him  and  his  fame, 
which  it  was  delightful  to  witness  in  the  only  person  that  could  have 
been  fancied  his  rival.  During  the  evening  she  was  very  agreeable, 
and  in  the  latter  part  of  it  very  brilliant  with  repartee,  so  that  we  sat 
late  together,  not  separating  until  midnight.  Everything  shows  that 
her  mind  is  as  active,  and  as  capable  of  producing  "Ennui,"  or  "The 
Absentee,"  now,  as  at  any  previous  period.  In  fact,  "  Helen"  proves  it. 

August  24.  —  The  house,  and  many  of  its  arrangements,  —  the  bells, 
the  doors,  etc.,  —  bear  witness  to  that  love  of  mechanical  trifling  of 
which  Mr.  Edgeworth  was  so  often  accused.  It  was  only  this  morn 
ing  that  I  fully  learnt  how  to  open,  shut,  and  lock  our  chamber-door  ; 
and  the  dressing-glass,  at  which  I  have  shaved  -for  three  mornings,  is 
somewhat  of  a  mystery  to  me  still.  Things  are  in  general  very  con 
venient  and  comfortable  through  the  house,  though,  as  elsewhere  in 
Ireland,  there  is  a  want  of  English  exactness  and  finish.  However, 
all  such  matters,  even  if  carried  much  farther  than  they  are,  would 
be  mere  trifles  in  the  midst  of  so  much  kindness,  hospitality,  and  in 
tellectual  pleasures  of  the  highest  order,  as  we  enjoyed  under  their 
roof,  where  hospitality  is  so  abundant  that  they  have  often  had  twenty 
or  thirty  friends  come  upon  them  unexpectedly,  when  the  family  was 
much  larger  than  it  is  now. 

But  we  were  now  obliged  to  leave  them.  We  did  it  with  great  re 
gret  ;  but  our  engagements  with  other  friends  in  England  would  be 
broken  by  a  more  protracted  stay  in  Ireland.  So  urgent  was  their 
kindness,  as  we  parted  from  them,  that  we  fairly  promised  to  come 
back  to  Ireland,*  on  our  return  from  the  Continent,  and  make  them 

*  Note  by  Mr.  Ticknor,  written  February 9, 1836  :  "After  an  interval  of  six 
months  I  look  back  upon  this  visit  to  Miss  Edgeworth  with  just  the  same  feel- 


432  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1835. 

a  longer  visit.  At  half  past  ten  this  morning,  after  lingering  at  the 
breakfast-table  longer  than  we  ought  to  have  done,  we  left  them. 
The  roads  are  good,  the  post  well  served,  so  that  we  reached  Dublin 
—  sixty-five  English  miles  —  in  eight  hours  and  a  quarter.  , 

September  1,  1835.* — At  Ambleside  we  found  a  kind  note  from 
Wordsworth,  inviting  us  to  come  directly  to  him.  I  walked  there 

as  ,soon  as  I  had  refreshed  myself  a  little I  found  it,  as  I 

anticipated,  a  house  of  trouble.  Mrs.  Wordsworth's  sister  died  a  few 
weeks  ago  ;  Mr.  Wordsworth's  sister  —  a  person  of  much  talent  —  lies 
at  the  point  of  death,  and  his  daughter  is  suffering  under  the  spine 
complaint,  though  likely  to  recover.  But  they  received  me  —  I  mean 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Wordsworth,  their  daughter,  and  their  two  sons  —  with 
entire  kindness,  and,  after  the  first  few  moments,  did  not  seem  to 
recall  their  sorrows. 

Wordsworth  was  very  agreeable.  He  talked  about  politics,  in  which 
his  views  are  very  gloomy.  He  holds  strongly  and  fondly,  with  an 
affectionate  feeling  of  veneration,  to  the  old  and  established  in  the 
institutions,  usages,  and  peculiarities  of  his  country,  and  he  sees 
them  all  shaken  by  the  progress  of  change.  His  moral  sensibilities 
are  offended  ;  his  old  affections  are  wounded  ;  his  confidence  in  the 
future  is  disturbed.  But  though  he  talks  about  it  as  if  it  were  a 
subject  that  oppresses  him,  he  talks  without  bitterness,  and  with  the 
large  and  flowing  eloquence  which  marks  his  whole  conversation. 
Indeed,  he  feels  the  whole  matter  so  deeply  and  so  tenderly,  that  it 
is  not  easy  to  avoid  sympathizing  with  him,  even  when  the  strictness 
of  his  political  system  is  most  apparent.  He  was  very  curious,  too, 
about  our  institutions  in  America,  and  their  effect  upon  society  and 
character,  and  made  many  shrewd  as  well  as  kind  remarks  about  us  ; 
but  is  certainly  not  inclined  to  augur  well  of  our  destinies,  for  he  goes 
upon  the  broad  principle  that  the  mass  of  any  people  cannot  be 
trusted  with  the  powers  of  government. 

ings  with  which  I  drove  away  from  her  door.  There  was  a  life  and  spirit  about 
her  conversation,  she  threw  herself  into  it  with  such  abandon,  she  retorted  with 
such  brilliant  repartee,  and,  in  short,  she  talked  with  such  an  extraordinary 
flow  of  natural  talent,  that  I  do  not  know  whether  anything  of  the  kind  could 
be  finer." 

An  animated  and  interesting  correspondence  was  kept  up  for  many  years  be 
tween  Miss  and  Mrs.  Edgeworth  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Ticknor,  and  did  not  cease 
until  the  death  of  Mrs.  Edgeworth,  the  survivor  of  the  two,  in  1865. 

*  The  interval  since  the  last  extract  had  been  filled  by  a  charming  journey  in 
North  Wales,  including  visits  to  Mr.  J.  Taylor  and  the  Miss  Luxmoors  of  St. 
Asaph's. 


JE.  44.]  WORDSWORTH.  433 

In  this  sort  of  conversation  a  couple  of  hours  passed  very  quickly 
away,  and  when  I  rose  to  leave  him  he  took  his  staff  and  walked 
nearly  back  to  Ambleside  with  me. 

September  2.  — As  it  was  not  convenient  for  us  to  go  up  to  Rydal 
and  breakfast  with  Mr.  Wordsworth,  he  came  and  breakfasted  with 
us.  His  talk  was  like  that  of  last  evening,  flowing  and  abundant, 
with  an  elevated  moral  and  intellectual  tone,  and  full  of  a  kindliness 
that  was  not  to  be  mistaken.  We  determined  to  pass  the  day  in 
an  excursion  up  Coniston  Water,  generally  considered  the  most  beau 
tiful  of  the  lakes,  and  he  said  he  would  go  with  us,  —  a  great  addition 

to  a  great  pleasure To  show  us  the  best  points  he  carried  us 

to  the  houses  of  two  of  his  friends.  The  first  was  Mrs.  Copley's, 
where  we  met  Miss  Fletcher,*  formerly  of  Edinburgh,  and  one  or  two 
other  quite  agreeable  people, -and  where  we  stopped  long  enough  to 

lunch  with  them The  other  place  was  that  of  the  venerable 

Mrs.  Smith, — the  mother  of  the  extraordinary  Elizabeth  Smith, — 
where,  besides  the  fine  views,  we  saw  the  cottage,  the  site  of  the  tent 
which  has  given  the  name  of  Tent  Hall  to  the  place,  ....  and  the 
other  localities  mentioned  in  the  beautiful  "  Fragments,"  printed  after 
her  premature  death 

We  then  set  out  to  visit  my  old  friend  Mrs.  Fletcher,  ....  but 
met  her,  and,  finding  that  our  engagements  would  permit  no  other 
arrangement,  she  offered  to  breakfast  with  us  to-morrow  morning,  and 
we  parted  and  came  back  to  Ambleside. 

Wordsworth,  as  usual,  talked  the  whole  time.  He  showed  us  the 
scenery  in  the  spirit  of  one  bred  among  its  beauties  ;  with  which  his 
mind  has  been  peculiarly  nourished,  and  of  which  his  poetry  every 
where  bears  the  impress.  He  talked  about  Burns,  whose  poetry  he 
analyzed  with  great  truth  and  acuteness,  considering  it  as  the  fresh 
and  unidealized  expression  of  the  most  beautiful  of  merely  human 
feelings  and  affections,  in  the  better  parts  of  it,  and  in  this  view  of 
unrivalled  merit.  He  described  to  us  his  last  sad  visit  to  Scott,  just 
as  he  was  setting  off  for  Naples,  broken  down  in  mind  and  body,  and 
conscious  of  it ;  for  when  his  two  last  stories  were  mentioned,  he 
said,  "Don't  speak  of  them  ;  they  smell  of  apoplexy." 

And  he  talked  about  Campbell,  the  reviewers,  and  their  effect  on 
his  own  reputation,  etc.,  all  in  the  most  kindly  and  frank  spirit, 
describing  to  us  "  The  Recluse,"  his  unpublished  poem,  and  repeating, 
in  illustration  of  his  opinions,  passages  from  his  own  works,  in  his 

*  See  ante,  p.  279.  Miss  Fletcher  afterwards  married  Sir  John  Richardson, 
the  Arctic  explorer. 

VOL.   I.  19  BB 


434  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1835. 

peculiarly  sonorous  recitative.  The  drive  of  fifteen  miles  and  the 
visit  seemed  short,  and  soon  after  my  return  home  I  rejoined  him  at 
Rydal  Mount  and  passed  an  extremely  agreeable  evening  with  him 
again,  which  he  again  ended  by  accompanying  me  back  to  Ambleside 
by  a  beautiful  moonlight. 

September  3.  —  Mrs.  Fletcher  and  her  daughter  came  'to  breakfast 
with  us ;  and  though  she  is  sixteen  years  older  than  she  was  when 
I  saw  her  last,  she  is  as  interesting  as  ever,  by  her  talent  and  en 
thusiasm.  When  we  drove  from  Ambleside  she  accompanied  us  to 
Wordsworth's,  where  we  passed  a  couple  of  hours  very  agreeably. 
He  showed  us  quite  over  his  pretty  grounds  and  through  his  favorite 
walks,  where  he  has  composed  so  much  of  his  poetry,  ....  and  went 
with  us  to  the  picturesque  waterfall  in  Lady  Le  Fleming's  grounds. 
....  His  daughter  was  on  her  sofa,  very  intelligent  and  pleasing, 
her  animation  not  impaired  by  her  debility  ;  and  his  younger  son, 
whose  education  is  not  completed,  is  an  agreeable,  kind-hearted  young 
man,  forming,  with  their  venerable  father  and  excellent,  gentle,  ma 
tronly  mother,  a  group  which  leaves  such  a  kindly  and  harmonious 

impression  on  the  mind  as  we  are  always  glad  to  cherish  there 

Bidding  farewell  to  the  Wordsworths  and  the  Fletchers,  we  drove  on 
to  Keswick. 

KESWICK,  September  3.  —  We  oame  here  by  invitation  to  pass  the 
evening  with  Southey,  but  we  accepted  the  invitation  with  some  hesi 
tation,  for  Mrs.  Southey  has  been  several  months  hopelessly  deranged, 
and  is  supposed  now  to  be  sinking  away.  ....  He  received  us  very 
kindly,  but  was  much  moved  when  he  showed  me  his  only  son,  and 
reminded  me  that  I  had  last  seen  him  hardly  three  weeks  old,  in 
his  cradle  in  the  same  room 

Southey  was  natural  and  kind,  but  evidently  depressed,  much 
altered  since  I  saw  him  fifteen  years  ago,  a  little  bent,  and  his  hair 
quite  white.  He  showed  me  the  materials  for  his  edition  of  Cowper 
and  the  beginning  of  the  Life ;  the  last  work,  he  says,  he  shall  ever  do 
for  the  booksellers.  Among  the  materials  was  the  autograph  manu 
script  of  "  John  Gilpin,"  and  many  letters He  read .  us,  too, 

about  three  cantos  of  his  "Oliver  Newman," — the  poem  on  American 
ground,  —  some  of  it  fine,  but  the  parts  intended  to  be  humorous  in 
very  bad  taste.  He  showed  me  as  many  curious  and  rare  manuscripts 
and  books  as  I  could  look  at,  and  told  me  that  he  means  now  to  fin 
ish  his  history  of  Portugal  and  Portuguese  literature  ;  and  if  possible 
write  a  history  of  the  Monastic  Orders.  If  he  does  the  last,  it  will 
be  bitter  enough.  He  says  he  has  written  no  "  Quarterly  Eeview  " 


M  U.]  MUSICAL  FESTIVAL  AT  YORK.  435 

for  two  years,  and  means  to  write  no  more  ;  that  reviews  have  done 
more  harm  than  good,  etc.  la  politics  I  was  surprised  to  find  him 
less  desponding  than  Wordsworth,  though  perhaps  more  excited. 
He  says,  however,  that  Ireland  will  not  be  tranquillized  without 
bloodshed,  admits  that  Sir  Eobert  Peel  is  not  a  great  man,  and  that 
England  is  now  desperately  in  want  of  really  great  minds  to  manage 
its  affairs.  His  conversation  was  very  various,  sometimes  quite  re 
markable,  but  never  rich  or  copious  like  Wordsworth's,  and  never 
humorous  or  witty.  It  was  rather  abundant  in  matters  of  fact,  and 
often  in  that  way  quite  striking  and  effective 

YORK,  September  6.  —  We  arrived  here  early,  and  established  our 
selves  in  the  na'rrow,  but  neat  and  comfortable  lodgings  which  we 
had  previously  secured  for  the  Musical  Festival  week.  The  city, 
though  old,  seemed  beautifully  clean ;  and  the  streets,  though  close 
and  dark,  were  filled  with  crowds  of  well-dressed  people,  many  of 

whom,  like  ourselves,  had  been  attracted  by  the  great  occasion 

In  the  latter  part  of  the  evening,  the  moon  being  at  its  full  and  very 
brilliant,  we  walked  quite  round  the  magnificent  minster,  enjoying 
the  effect  of  its  glorious  Gothic  architecture  by  the  light  in  which 
it  can  be  most  appropriately  seen.  It  was  very  beautiful  and  very 
solemn,  especially  when  viewed  from  near  the  gates  of  the  Eesi- 
dence. 

September  7.  —  I  met,  this  morning,  Mr.  William  Vernon  Harcourt, 
with  whom  I  dined  at  Lord  Mulgrave's  in  Dublin.  He  is  the  son 
of  the  Archbishop  of  York,  first  Eesidentiary  Canon  of  the  minster, 

and  the  most  active  and  efficient  manager  of  the  Festival The 

.first  instance  of  his  kind  attention  was  to  give  us  the  means  of  going 
-to  the  garden  of  the  Museum  this  morning,  when  the  Duchess  of 
Kent  and  the  Princess  Victoria  were  received  there 

September  8.  — The  first  great  day  of  the  Festival.  Mr.  Harcourt 
sent  us  tickets  for  the  "Patrons'  gallery"  in  the  minster,  the  best 
part  pf  the  building,  where  seats  were  reserved  for  the  royal  party, 
and  we  went  at  eleven  o'clock.  Everything  was  perfectly  arranged, 
twelve  avenues  being  opened  to  admit  the  immense  crowd  into  the 
immense  building  ;  a  moment  after  we  entered,  we  emerged  into  a 
gallery  at  the  west  end  of  the  church  opposite  to  the  choir  and  the 
great  organ.  The  part  of  the  minster  given  to  the  purposes  of  this 
occasion  is  the  nave  and  aisles,,  the  nave  being  261  feet  long,  109 
broad,  and  99  high  ....  all  together  capable  of  containing  full 
5,000  persons  seated,  besides  the  620  musicians 

Punctually  at  twelve  o'clock  the  royal  party  arrived The 


436  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1835. 

whole  audience  rose,  and  when  the  royal  guests  came  to  the  front  of 
the  gallery  so  as  to  be  distinctly  visible,  a  tumult  of  applause  broke 
forth  which  was  with  difficulty  suppressed  by  the  Dean  as  entirely 

unsuitable  to  the  place As  soon  as  they  were  seated  tfeg  whole 

choir  broke  forth  with  Handel's  Coronation  Hymn,  this  being  the 
anniversary  of  the  King's  crowning.  The  effect  was  electrical.  The 
vast  audience  rose  again,  and  when  the  shout  of  "  God  save  the 
King  "  broke  from  the  choir  of  four  hundred  voices  sustained  by  the 
full  power  of  two  hundred  and  fifty  instruments  and  the  tremendous 
organ,  its  effect  was  not  to  be  mistaken.  There  was  not  a  soul  under 
those  wide  vaults  that  did  not  feel  it 

September  9.  —  The  performance  to-day  was  Handel's  Messiah,  — 
the  whole  of  it,  —  a  great  work,  which  requires  all  the  power  and 
variety  that  the  art  of  music  can  bring  with  it ;  and  which,  I  suppose, 
has  never  been  heard  so  well  anywhere  as  in  this  vast  and  solemn 
minster.  ....  It  is  astonishing  how  distinctly  a  single  voice  is  heard, 
even  in  its  lowest  and  sweetest  tones,  through  nearly  every  part  of 
this  wide  pile  ;  and  the  stillness  of  the  multitudes  to  catch  its  mur 
murs  is  sometimes  as  thrilling  as  the  notes  themselves.  Grisi  can  fill 
the  whole  building  with  the  most  brilliant  sounds. 

We  dined  at  Lord  Fitzwilliam's,  who  has  taken  a  large  house  just 
outside  the  gates,  for  the  Festival  week,  which  he  thinks  it  his  in 
herited  duty  to  patronize 

September  12. —  Mr.  Willis  of  Caius  College,  Cambridge,  who  has 
published  on  architecture,  being  here,  and  desirous  to  see  some  parts 
of  the  cathedral  not  usually  seen,  Mr.  Harcourt  had  it  opened  and 
lighted,  and  a  party  Avas  formed  to  go  over  it.  It  was  very  curious. 
We  were  shown,  under  the  pavement  of  the  present  choir,  the  re 
mains  of  the  ancient  choir  of  the  church  built  in  1070  and  burnt  in 
1137,  together  with  one  arch  of  the  still  older  church  built  about 
A.  D.  900,  all  discovered  in  1830,  when  the  excavations  were  made 
for  the  repairs  of  the  present  building,  after  the  disastrous  fire  of 
1829.  These  old  ruins  are  of  Cyclopean  size,  and  the  later  portions 
of  them  are  in  the  Norman  style  and  very  elaborate.  The  whole  is 
in  total  darkness  under  the  foundations  of  the  huge  minster  itself, 
but  was  this  morning  beautifully  lighted  up  with  gas,  which  has  been 
introduced  for  the  purpose.  After  this  we  went  over  the  choir  and 

the  other  parts  of  the  church It  has  more  of  the  power  given 

to  Gothic  architecture  in  the  "  Penseroso  "  than  any  building  I  know 
of ;  "  the  high  embowed  roof,"  the  "  antic  pillars  massy-proof,"  the 
"  storied  windows,  richly  dight,"  "  the  pealing  organ,"  and  "  the  full- 


M  44.]  DONCASTER  RACES.  437 

voiced  quire  below,"  are  all  there,  and  there  in  their  original  perfec 
tion 

We  were  invited  to  dine  with  the  Harcourts,  but  had  an  engage 
ment  with  the  Phillipses We  passed  a  couple  of  hours  most 

agreeably  with  Professor  Phillips,  who  gratifies  and  surprises  me  more, 
the  more  I  know  him.*  ....  We  finished  the  evening  with  the 
Harcourts,  who  are  fine  specimens  of  the  highest  order  of  the  English 
character,  —  the  lady  beautiful,  intelligent,  winning,  and  religious  ; 
and  Mr.  Harcourt  a  quiet,  unobtrusive,  efficient  gentleman,  with  very 
large  resources  of  various  and  elegant  knowledge.  We  shall  be  sorry 
indeed  to  leave  York,  because  it  contains  such  people. 

After  the  Musical  Festival  followed  the  Doncaster  Eaces,  at 
which,  on  the  great  St.  Leger  Day,  the  excitement  of  the  mul 
titude  was  vastly  increased  that  year  by  the  presence  of  the 
Princess  Victoria  and  the  Duchess  of  Kent,  who  were  then  the 
guests  of  Lord  Fitzwilliam  at  Went  worth  House.  The  arrival 
of  the  royal  party  at  the  race-ground  was  a  brilliant  sight,  with 
the  turnout  of  Lord  Fitzwilliam's  many  splendid  carriages,  all 
with  six  or  four  horses  and  outriders,  and  escorted  by  a  body  of 
forty  of  his  manly-looking  tenants ;  and  when  the  Princess  was 
seated  in  front  of  the  Grand  Stand,  the  upturned  faces  of  the 
immense  crowd  that  welcomed  her  made  another  impressive 
sight. 

The  descriptions  of  these  scenes,  and  of  Castle  Howard,  Ei- 
vaulx  Abbey,  and  other  interesting  spots,  must  be  set  aside  to 
make  room  for  visits  at  pleasant  country-houses.  First  comes 
Mulgrave  Castle,  where,  by  Lord  Mulgrave's  invitation,  given 
at  Dublin,  the  party  were  received  by  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Edward 
Villiers,t  then  staying  there. 

On  September  18,  the  day  following  their  arrival  at  Mulgrave 
Castle,  Mr.  Ticknor  says  :  — 

*  John  Phillips,  Professor  of  Geology  in  King's  College,  London,  and  Curator 
of  the  Museum  at  York,  an  eminent  geologist.  Mr.  Ticknor  had  known  him 
in  Dublin,  when  he  was  Secretary  of  the  British  Association. 

t  Mrs.  Edward  Villiers  was  a  sister  of  Lady  Mulgrave,  and  Mr.  Villiers  a 
brother  of  Mrs.  Lister,  "  a  highly  intellectual  person,  with  large  and  pleasant 
resources  in  belles-lettres  knowledge,  whom,"  says  Mr.  Ticknor,  "  I  thought 
quite  equal  to  any  of  the  family  for  talent,  beside  which  he  is  a  better  scholar 
than  any  of  them." 


438  LIFE  OP  GEORGE  TICKNOB.  [1835. 

We  began  our  excursion  by  stopping  in  a  small  village  belonging 
to  Lord  Mulgrave.  We  wished  to  get  a  little  information  from  the 
clergyman,  but  he  was  not  at  home.  I  was  sorry  for  it,  for  Mr.  Villiers 
told  me  he  is  one  of  the  last  specimens  now  remaining  of  Fielding's 
Parson  Adams,  sometimes  dining  with  Lord  and  Lady  Mulgrave,  and 
finishing  the  evening  drinking  beer  in  their  servants'  hall.  I  saw 
the  house  in  which  the  profligate  Duke  of  Buckingham  took  refuge 
from  the  plague,  in  the  time  of  Charles  II.  His  tenantry  were  rejoiced 
to  have  him  among  them,  as  Lord  Mulgrave  told  me,  did  him  all 
honor  and  made  him  as  comfortable  as  possible,  and,  when  he  went 
away,  crowded  about  him  and  asked  when  he  would  come  again. 
"  With  the  next  plague,"  said  the  gracious  landlord,  and  rode  off. 

The  next  day,  at  Kirby  Moorside,  Mr.  Ticknor  was  shown  a 
common-looking  house  where  Villiers,  Duke  of  Buckingham, 
died,  whose  death  is  thus  recorded  in  the  parish,  register  of  the 
place:  "buried  in  the  yeare  of  our  Lord  1687,  April  ye  17. 
Gorges  uiluas  Lord  dooke  of  bookingam,"  etc.,  —  so  carelessly 
and  ignorantly  was  the  death  of  a  statesman,  out  of  date,  put  on 
record,  even  in  the  midst  of  his  own  possessions  and  tenantry. 

About  two  miles  to  the  northwest  of  Kirby  Moorside,  I  stopped 
to  see  the  small  but  remarkable  church  of  Kirkdale.  It  stands  in  a 
retired  and  quiet  valley,  and  has  undergone  considerable  repairs  ;  but 
the  Saxon  arch  of  its  principal  entrance  is  still  surmounted  by  a  sun 
dial,  on  which  there  is  a  plain  Saxon  inscription,  signifying  that  it 
was  placed  there  "  by  Orm  the  son  of  Gamal,  in  the  days  of  Edward 
the  King  and  of  Tosti  the  Earl,"  which  brings  its  date  to  1055  -  65, 
when  Tosti  was  Earl  of  Northumberland,  and  Edward,  the  Confessor, 
King. 

Three  days  later  they  passed  through  Leeds,  where  the  Messrs. 
Gott  —  two  of  whom  Mr.  Ticknor  had  met  at  York  —  showed 
him  the  wonderful  machinery  of  their  great  woollen  manufactory, 
with  a  freedom  and  openness  very  unusual ;  and  "  after  resting 
from  this  labor,"  he  says,  "I  went  to  dine  at  Mr.  Edward 
Smyth's,  the  head  of  the  branch  of  the  Bank  of  England  for 
Leeds,  and  brother  of  Professor  Smyth,  who  is  now  staying  at 
his  house.  It  was  a  pleasant,  quiet  dinner  ;  the  professor  him 
self  being,  as  he  always  is,  agreeable,  with  the  utmost  simplicity 


M.  44.]  MR.   WATERTON.  43i) 

of,  heart.  I  saw  him  constantly  in  York,  and  it  was  one  of  my 
pleasures  to  witness  his  exquisite  enjoyment  of  the  music  at  the 
minster." 

A  visit  of  three  days  at  Thorn's  House  —  the  seat  of  Mr. 
Gaskell,  ten  miles  from  Leeds  —  now  followed.  Professor 
Smyth  of  Cambridge  joined  the  party  at  Leeds,  by  appoint 
ment,  and  added  to  every  interest  and  enjoyment  in  the  next 
two  days  by  his  delightful  union  of  talent,  simplicity,  quaint 
humor,  and  most  winning  kindliness.  Mr.  Gaskell  had  been 
Member  of  Parliament  for  Maiden,  and  his  son  at  this  time 
represented  Shropshire.  The  whole  family  were  rich  in  culti 
vation,  refinement,  and  hospitality,  and  the  establishment  elegant 
and  luxurious. 

Immediately  after  lunch  [on  the  first  day]  Mrs.  Gaskell  carried 
us  to  the  house  of  that  strange  person,  Mr.  Waterton,  whose  "  Wander 
ings  "  in  South  America  excited  so  much  remark  a  few  years  ago.  He 
is  an  anomaly  ;  a  thorough  Catholic,  and  holding  the  most  despotic 
theories  of  government,  yet  a  radical  at  home,  in  order  to  overturn 
everything  now  existing  in  England ;  living  a  large  part  of  his  time  in 
the  woods,  with  the  habits  and  the  sharpened  instincts  of  a  savage,  and 
yet  with  a  fine,  comfortable,  English  establishment,  full  of  servants  and 
luxuries  ;  a  man  of  an  old  family  and  large  hereditary  property,  yet 
holding  little  intercourse  with  those  about  him  ;  in  short,  a  mass 
of  inconsistencies,  mingled  with  a  great  deal  of  talent  and  not  a  lit 
tle  science.  We  were  sorry  not  to  find  him  at  home  ;  but  we  saw 
his  curious  collection  in  natural  history,  one  of  the  most  beautiful 
things  I  ever  beheld.  The  birds,  collected  and  prepared  by  himself, 

are  exquisite There  were  other  things,  too  ;  the  alligator  he 

rode  ;  the  "  nondescript,"  with  which  he  tried  to  mystify  the  natural 
ists,  but  which  is  only  a  red  monkey,  prepared  by  his  consummate 
skill  to  look  like  a  man,  etc.,  etc.  The  whole  is  in  his  house,  which 
stands  in  the  middle  of  a  small  lake,  and  is  approached  by  a  draw 
bridge,  —  a  fit  position  and  arrangement  for  so  whimsical  and  strange 
a  creature. 

On  the  25th  September,  Mr.  Ticknor  reached  Wentworth 
House,  Lord  Fitzwilliarn's  "  princely  establishment,"  and  there 
four  days  were  filled  with  rich  and  varied  interest,  and  with 
the  most  true  and  delightful  hospitality. 


440  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1835. 


JOURNAL. 

Sunday,  September  27.  —  After  breakfast  —  which  was  rather  late, 
and  over  which  we  lounged  a  good  while  —  Lord  Fitzwilliam  asked 
who  would  drive  to  church  ;  all  but  two  of  the  ladies  declined.  It 
seeins  to  be  the  custom  of  the  house  to  employ  the  carriages  as  little 
as  possible  on  Sundays,  so  that  we  made  a  formidable  procession,  the 
children  and  all  constituting  about  twenty.  Those  of  the  tenantry  who 
were  in  the  churchyard— perhaps  a  dozen  — drew  up  to  the  path  and 

took  off  their  hats  as  Lord  Fitzwilliam  passed  in The  church  is 

small,  very  old,  and  has  nothing  curious  about  it  but  a  few  old  monu 
ments,  especially  one  to  Lord  Stafford's  father  and  one  to  himself,  all 
quite  rude.  He  was  the  last  distinguished  person  buried  here  ;  his 
son,  with  the  Rockinghams,  Fitzwilliams,  etc.,  being  deposited  in  York 
Minster.  The  pew  of  the  family  is  of  oak,  very  rudely  carved,  and 
has  a  shattered  look  ;  but  it  is  in  the  state  in  which  it  was  when  the 
famous  Strafford  sat  there,  and  has  his  arms  ill  cut  in  several  places. 
....  I  could  not  help  imagining  how  things  looked  when  he  was 
there,  and  the  great  Marquis  of  Rockingham,  and  when  Burke  and 
Fox  sat  there,  as  they  often  did,  with  the  late  Lord  Fitzwilliam.  I 
had  many  strange  visions  about  it,  and  little  heeded  poor  old  Mr. 

Lowe We  lounged  slowly  home  through  the  grounds  and 

gardens 

After  lunch,  Lord  Fitzwilliam  said  he  should  go  to  hear  a  charity 
sermon  two  or  three  miles  off,  and  asked  who  would  go  with  him  ; 
but  all  declined  except  Lady  Mary  and  Mr.  Thompson,  it  being 
understood  that  Dr.  Dundas  would  read  the  evening  service  in  the 
chapel  after  dinner.  Instead  of  going  to  church  we  made  a  party  at 
half  past  three,  to  see  the  stables  and  the  establishment  for  young 
horses  at  one  of  the  lodges.  They  were  well  worth  the  trouble 

After  dinner  ....  the  party  distributed  itself  through  the  gallery 
and  the  library  rooms,  to  the  number  of  about  thirty.  A  little  be 
fore  nine  o'clock  the  groom  of  the  chambers  came  as  usual  and  said, 
"  My  lord,  the  chapel  is  ready,"  and  everybody  went.  About  seventy 
or  eighty  servants  were  there  when  we  went  in,  and  with  the  family 
and  visitors  made  quite  a  respectable  congregation.  The  ladies  were 
in  the  gallery,  the  female  servants  chiefly  under  it 

September  28.  —  We  intended  to  have  left  Wentworth  House  this 
morning,  and,  passing  the  day  at  Sheffield,  about  ten  miles  off,  have  pro 
ceeded  on  our  journey  to-morrow  ;  but  I  found  Lord  Fitzwilliam  had 
invited  Montgomery,  the  poet,  to  meet  us,  and  that  they  had  proposed 


M.  44.]  JAMES  MONTGOMERY.  441 

to  make  a  party  for  Sheffield  to  go  with  us,  so  that  we  altered  our  plan. 
....  After  breakfast  we  went  over  some  other  parts  of  this  vast  pile 
of  building,  saw  the  state  sleeping-apartments,  which  are  magnifi 
cent,  and  many  other  suites  of  rooms  that  are  very  rich  and  comfort 
able The  saloon  fitted  up  by  the  present  Lord  Fitzwilliam  is 

very  rich  and  magnificent.  On  one  side  of  it  hangs  the  famous 
picture  of  Lord  Buckingham's  horse  "  Whistler,"  by  Stubbs,  nearly 
as  large  as  life,  and  one  of  the  most  striking  pictures  of  an  animal  I 
ever  saw.  It  is  nothing  but  a  painting  of  a  horse,  no  trappings,  no 
background,  no  earth,  yet  it  does  not  leave  any  feeling  of  deficiency. 
Lord  Fitzwilliani  told  me  that  when  the  horse  was  painted  Lord 
Rockingham  intended  to  have  put  George  III.  upon  him  ;  "  but,"  said 
he,  laughing,  "  the  king  misbehaved  about  that  time,  and  so  Lord 
Rockingham  would  not  have  him  there.  However,"  he  added,  "  that 
is  a  story  I  do  not  often  tell,  and  the  people  here  know  nothing 
about  it.  There  is  no  use  in  having  such  things  remembered."  .... 

When  I  went  into  the  gallery  before  dinner  I  found  Montgomery 
talking  with  Mr.  Lowe.  He  —  Montgomery  —  is  a  small  man,  above 
sixty-five  years  old,  rather  feeble  and  sensitive,  but  good,  kind,  and 
benevolent,  and  greatly  loved  in  Sheffield,  where  he  has  lived  many 
years.  He  is  a  Moravian,  and  much  interested  in  what  relates  to  his 
sect  and  to  Christianity.  He  dresses  rather  singularly,  —  but,  I  sus 
pect,  from  some  fancied  benefit  to  his  health, — with  a  large  cravat 
and  very  high  standing  collar  to  his  shirt,  so  that,  as  his  head  is  small 
and  sunk  quite  deeply  into  this  projecting  collar,  the  effect  was  by  no 
means  good  at  first.  However,  he  is  very  agreeable  in  conversation, 
and  much  in  earnest  in  whatever  he  says,  so  that  I  was  quite  glad 
to  talk  with  him.  He  told  me,  among  other  things,  that  Chantrey 
was  born  near  Sheffield  ;  that  he  knew  him  as  quite  a  young  man 
before  he  went  to  London ;  that  he  began  in  the  country  as  a  portrait- 
painter,  and  showed  great  skill  in  drawing  but  no  power  of  coloring  ; 
and  that  he  —  Montgomery  —  had  a  portrait  of  himself  painted  by 
Chantrey  at  this  early  period.  He  told  me,  too,  a  good  deal  about 
Elliott,  the  author  of  the  Corn  Law  rhymes,  who  is  in  the  iron-trade 
at  Sheffield,  and  who,  it  seems,  has  been  these  thirty  years  trying  to 
obtain  notice  as  a  poet,  but  never  succeeding  until  lately.  Mont 
gomery  represents  him  —  as  might  have  been  anticipated  —  to  be  a 
person  with  much  talent  and  tenderness,  mixed  up  with  great  rude 
ness,  passion,  and  prejudice. 

After  dinner  the  children  danced  and  frolicked  in  the  gallery,  as 
usual,  until  prayer-time,  when  the  service  was  read  by  Mr.  Lowe  in 
19* 


442  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1835. 

the  chapel,  about  forty  or  fifty  persons  being  present.  Then  we  went 

to  the  library,  had  tea,  and  played  a  little  whist Before  we 

went  to  bed  Lord  Fitzwilliam  and  the  ladies  urged  us  so  kindly  and 
earnestly  to  return  to  them  on  Saturday,  and  meet  Lord  Spencer,  .... 
that  we  promised  to  do  so I  shall  be  very  glad  to  see  this  dis 
tinguished  statesman  so  quietly  and  familiarly. 

September  29.  —  We  left  Wentworth  House  to-day,  after  having  en 
joyed  as  much  really  considerate  kindness  as  we  ever  enjoyed  any 
where  in  four  days,  and  came  thirty-five  miles,  ....  to  Colonel 
Richard  Yorke's,  at  Wighill  Park 

October  3.  —  In  the  course  of  the  four  days  we  stayed  at  Wighill 
Park  there  were  about  twenty  different  inmates  in  the  house.*  It 
was  a  very  pleasant  party,  whose  chief  attraction  and  amusement  was 

music Sir  Francis  Doyle,  an  old  officer,  and  very  intelligent 

gentleman,  who  has  read  much  and  seen  much,  was  uniformly  agree 
able,  and  so  was  Lord  Arthur  Hill,  one  of  the  best  cavalry  officers  in 
the  service,  who  fought  at  Waterloo  in  the  famous  regiment  of  the 
Scotch  Grays,  and  now  commands  it,  but  whose  obvious  character 

here  was  only  bonhomie,  and  easy  careless  happiness Our  host 

himself,  who  has  been  entertaining  company  in  this  way  these  thirty 
years,  has  much  knowledge  of  the  world,  great  kindness,  and  a  good 
deal  of  amusing  anecdote.  His  establishment  was  perfect  for  its  pur 
poses,  in  comforts  and  luxuries,  and  there  was  an  exactness  in  the  mode 
of  carrying  it  on  that  was  quite  remarkable. 

We  left  Wighill  Park  between  eleven  and  twelve,  and  reached  Lord 
Fitzwilliam's  before  five.  Twelve  or  thirteen  miles  off,  the  milestones 
that  announced  the  distance  "  From  Wentworth  House  "  showed  we 

were  within  his  dominions We  found  Lord  Fitzwilliam  in  the 

long  gallery.  He  received  us  with  great  kindness,  and  presented  us 
to  Lord  Spencer,  lately  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer,  and  as 
"  Honest  Althorp,"  the  leader  of  Lord  Grey's  administration  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  t  He  had  arrived  about  an  hour  before  us,  and 
was  still  standing  before  the  fire  in  his  travelling-dress.  He  is  about 
fifty-three  years  old,  short,  thick-set,  with  a  dark  red  complexion, 
black  hair,  beginning  to  turn  gray,  a  very  ordinary,  farmer-like  style 
of  dress,  and  no  particularly  vivacious  expression  of  countenance. 
His  manner-  was  as  quiet  and  simple  as  possible,  perfectly  willing  to 

*  Note  by  Mr.  Ticknor  :  "  When  I  look  back  upon  this  visit,  it  seems  as  if  I 
were  recollecting  some  of  the  descriptions  of  parties  in  country-houses  in  Eng 
lish  novels,  so  much  truer  are  they  to  nature  than  is  generally  imagined." 

t  Third  Earl  Spencer. 


M.  44.]  LORD  SPENCER.  443 

talk,  but  not  seeming  to  have  much  to  say.  We  were  presented  also 
to  Mr.  Wood,  I  believe  a  son-in-law  of  Lord  Grey,  and  to  Mr.  Cha- 
loner,  a  brother-in-law  of  Lord  Fitzwilliam,  who  is  here  with  his  wife, 
a  daughter  of  the  late  Lord  Dundas,  and  a  son  and  daughter.  We 
found  too  the  Dundases,  whom  we  left  here  on  Tuesday,  and  a  Mr. 
Phillips,*  a  fine  scholar-like  young  man,  and  Mr.  Frederic  Ponsonby, 
of  the  Besborough  family 

Lord  Spencer,  whom  I  sat  near  at  dinner,  was  very  agreeable.  We 
talked  about  the  hunting  season,  which  is  now  just  beginning.  He 
said  he  used  to  keep  a  pack  formerly,  and  that  the  relations  into  which 
it  brought  him  with  his  neighbors  and  the  county  had  taught  him 
more  of  human  nature  than  he  had  learnt  in  any  other  way.  The 
whole  affair  of  fox-hunting,  he  added,  with  all  its  trespasses  upon 
property,  could  not  be  maintained,  if  the  whole  neighborhood  did 
not  take  as  great  an  interest  in  it  as  the  owner  of  the  hounds.  In 
talking  a  little  politics,  he  happened  to  speak  of  Lord  Lyndhurst, 
and  while  he  gave  him  all  praise  as  a  man  of  talent,  of  perfectly  good 
temper,  and  of  the  best  possible  qualities  and  habits  for  a  business 
man,  he  declared  that  he  was  entirely  unprincipled.  In  illustration, 
he  said  that,  having  made  up  his  mind  formerly  to  introduce  a  bill 
for  the  collection  of  small  debts  by  a  simpler  process,  he  communi 
cated  with  Lord  Lyndhurst  —  then  Solicitor-General  —  on  the  sub 
ject,  and  was  assured  by  him  that  he  approved  of  it  entirely,  and  that 
it  would  be,  not  only  a  great  benefit  to  suitors,  but  a  great  relief  to 
the  upper  courts,  who  were  most  uselessly  oppressed  with  such  busi 
ness.  Lord  Spencer  —  then  Lord  Althorp  —  introduced  the  bill,  and 
was  surprised  beyond  measure  to  have  Mr.  Solicitor  Copley  oppose 
it  in  a  very  able  and  acute  argument.  He  went  over  instantly  and 
spoke  to  him  on  the  subject,  and  reminded  him  of  what  he  had  pre 
viously  said  in  its  favor,  in  private,  to  which  "  Copley  made  no  sort 
of  reply  but  by  a  hearty  laugh."  Lord  Eldon,  however,  on  whom 
Copley's  promotion  then  depended,  it  was  found  afterwards,  was  op 
posed  to  the  bill,  and  this  explained  it.  Later,  the  government 
changed  its  opinion  on  the  measure,  Lord  Althorp  introduced  it 
again,  received  the  most  efficient,  good-tempered,  and  sagacious  sup 
port  for  it,  both  in  committee  and  in  the  House,  and  carried  it,  with 
Copley's  aid,  in  every  stage,  and  in  every  way,  except  debate. 

Lord  Spencer  talked  to  me,  too,  a  great  deal  about  his  recollections 
of  Fox,  Pitt,  and  Sheridan,  placing  the  latter  much  lower  than  his 
party  usually  does,  and  giving  more  praise  to  Pitt  than  I  ever  heard 

*  Thomas  J.  Phillips,  Esq. 


444  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOE.  [1835. 

a  Whig  give  him.  He  does  not  talk  brilliantly,  —  he  hardly  talks 
well,  for  he  hesitates,  blushes  even,  and  has  a  queer  chuckling  laugh, 
—  but  he  interests  you  and  commands  your  attention.  I  felt  sure  all 

the  time  that  I  was  getting  right  impressions  from  him As  we 

went  down  to  the  chapel,  Lord  Spencer  told  me  that  so  solemn  and 
fine  a  chapel  is  nowhere  else  kept  up  in  England.  Dr.  Dundas  read 
prayers,  and  about  fifty-five  were  present. 

Sunday,  October  4.  —  The  forenoon  was  rainy Lord  Fitz- 

william  said  he  was  not  well  and  should  not  go  to  church,  but  asked 
round,  and  collected  a  considerable  number,  for  whom  he  ordered 
three  carriages 

Lord  Spencer  talked  with  decided  ability  about  the  Poor-Laws  as 
we  walked  home,  for  the  rain  had  ceased.  He  told  me,  too,  about  his 
brother,  who,  from  being  a  richly  beneficed  English  clergyman,  has 
become  a  poor,  fervent  Catholic  priest ;  and  yet  is  a  man  of  much 
talent  and  learning,  who  greatly  distinguished  himself  at  Cambridge. 
At  the  end  of  our  talk  he  invited  us  to  visit  him  at  Althorp,  any  time 
after  December  1,  which  is  the  earliest  period  he  can  be  there  him 
self,  and  I  was  very  sorry  to  be  obliged  to  decline.  I  should  revel  in 
that  magnificent  library  and  most  beautiful  establishment.  But  we 
cannot  go.  It  is  time  already  that  we  were  on  our  way  to  Dresden. 

The  dinner  to-day  was  in  greater  state  than  we  have  yet  seen  it ; 
that  is,  there  was  a  greater  show  of  plate,  five  gilt  silver  "  cups,"  as 
they  are  called,  but  really  massive  vases  of  elaborate  workmanship, 
ornamenting  the  centre  of  the  table  and  three  more  the  sideboard,  the 
whole  being  prizes  won  by  the  family  race-horses 

In  the  evening  we  looked  over  a  good  many  of  Lord  Fitzwilliam's 
curious  black-letter  books,  and  Lord  Spencer  told  us  so  much  about 
Althorp,  that  I  was  very  glad  to  promise  to  make  him  a  visit  there 
on  our  return  from  the  Continent.  Dr.  Dundas  read  the  evening 
service  at  ten  o'clock.  The  chapel  was  very  full  to-night,  more  than 
a  hundred  servants  being  present.  The  huntsmen  in  their  scarlet 
dresses,  who  have  come  [from  Northamptonshire]  since  we  were  here 
before,  made  quite  a  show. 

October  5.  —  It  is  a  rainy  morning,  and  yet  when  we  went  to  break 
fast  I  found  Lord  Spencer  with  spurs  on,  prepared  for  a  ride.  He 
told  me  that  he  is  going  to  Wakefield,  to  see  the  prison  there,  and 
had  sent  on  one  of  his  horses  to  change  half-way.  The  distance  is 
eighteen  miles,  making  thirty-six  in  all,  which  he  prefers  to  take  on 

horseback,  notwithstanding  the  rain,  and  to  be  back  to  dinner 

Lord  Fitzwilliam  generally  makes  his  journeys  on  horseback,  in  all 


M.  44.]  WENTWORTH  HOUSE.  445 

weathers.  Last  year  he  went  in  this  way  to  Milton,  eighty-nine 
miles,  in  a  single  day,  and  will  probably  do  the  same  this  year.  All 
this  comes  of  fox-hunting. 

October  6.  —  To-day,  for  the  first  time  in  my  life,  I  have  witnessed 
and  joined  a  fox-hunt,  —  a  thing  as  different  from  all  I  ever  witnessed 
before  as  anything  can  well  be,  and  which  I  suppose  I  saw  in  great 
perfection,  for  Lord  Spencer  tells  me  the  establishment  for  it  here  is 

as  fine  as  any  in  England,  if  not  the  finest We  reached  home 

about  five  o'clock,  rather  late,  for  dinner  was  to  be  at  six,  as  it  is 
"the  Public  Day,"  or  the  day  on  which  the  family  —  in  observance 
of  a  custom  formerly  common  among  the  chief  nobility,  but  now 
hardly  kept  up  at  all  except  here  —  receive  any  of  their  neighbors 
who  think  fit  to  come  and  who  think  themselves  fit  to  come.  In  this 
way  Lord  Fitzwilliam  keeps  open  house  once  a  week  during  the  two 
or  three  months  he  lives  in  Yorkshire,  it  being  understood  that  per 
sons  do  not  generally  avail  themselves  of  the  invitation  more  than 
once  in  a  season ;  and  in  this  way  he  avoids  all  the  embarrassments 
and  heart-burnings  which  would  be  the  inevitable  consequence  of 
selecting,  sorting,  and  inviting  formal  parties. 

The  whole  state  and  ceremony  of  the  house  is  observed  on  these 
occasions,  to  which  people  come  ten,  twenty,  and  even  forty  miles  or 
more.  To-day  there  were  a  little  more  than  twenty,  the  most  curi 
ous  of  whom  was  old  Lady  G.,  eighty-four  years  old,  covered  with 
diamonds,  laces,  and  feathers.*  ....  The  party  was  received  in  the 
beautiful  saloon,  ....  and  the  procession  to  dinner  across  the  enor 
mously  large  hall,  headed  by  the  chaplain  in  his  canonicals,  was 

quite  a  solemnity Mr.  Lowe  was  in  full  costume,  bands  and 

all,  and  asked  a  blessing  and  returned  thanks.  The  dinner  itself  was 
much  as  usual,  but  there  was  of  course  a  greater  show  of  plate. 
Lord  Fitzwilliam  was  not  well  enough  to  appear. 

The  journey  from  Wentworth  House  to  London,  between  the 
8th  and  13th  of  October,  was  crowded  with  interest  and  beauty, 
and  the  ten  days  passed  in  London  were  busy,  not  only  by  reason 
of  the  kind  attentions  of  friends,  but  with  the  necessary  prep 
arations  for  a  migration  to  the  Continent.  In  a  resume  of  this 
autumnal  visit  in  London,  Mr.  Ticknor  says  :  — 

*  Note  by  Mr.  Ticknor  :  "  I  asked  Lord  Fitzwilliam  what  could  induce  a 
person  like  Lady  G.,  above  eighty  years  old  and  deaf,  to  come  thirty  or  forty 
miles  to  a  dinner  He  said,  '  Only  because  she  has  done  it  every  year  for  above 
half  a  century."' 


446  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1885. 

I  dined  once  with  my  old  friend  Lady  Dudley  Stuart.  She  is  a 
good  deal  altered  in  person,  and  has  feeble  health,  but  her  essential 
character  is  the  same  that  I  knew  eighteen  years  ago.*  Lord  Dudley 
Stuart  was  at  Lord  Brougham's  on  a  visit.  The  company  consisted 
of  the  Duke  de  Regina,  the  Count  del  Medico,  —  who  owns  the 
Carrara  quarries, —  and  two  or  three  other  persons.  It  was  pleasant, 
the  conversation  being  entirely  in  French,  and  much  of  the  amuse 
ment  of  the  evening  being  music.  An  English  composer,  who  is 
just  bringing  out  an  opera  which  he  dedicates  to  Lady  D.  Stuart, 
came  in  and  played  and  sang  ;  and  a  Polish  prince  —  among  those 
who  are  indebted  to  Lord  Dudley  Stuart  for  carrying  the  bill  in 
favor  of  the  Poles  through  Parliament  —  was  there  a  little  while, 
and  improvisated  with  great  talent.  There  was  nothing  English 
about  it,  any  more  than  if  we  had  all  been  in  Italy. 

Dr.  Holland,  who  travelled  in  Greece  with  Lord  Byron,  came  to 
see  me  one  morning,  in  consequence  of  a  note  from  Miss  Edgeworth, 
and  was  very  kind  in  attentions  afterwards,  but  I  could  only  find 
time  to  breakfast  with  him.  He  is  a  short,  active,  very  lively  person, 
abounding  in  knowledge,  and  in  very  exact  knowledge.  He  quite 
embarrassed  me  once  or  twice  by  his  minute  familiarity  with  Ameri 
can  geography,  but  he  is  a  very  simple,  direct,  and  agreeable  person. 
His  wife — a  daughter  of  Sydney  Smith  —  was  not  in  town,  for 
which  I  was  sorry.  But  I  shall  see  them  both,  I  trust,  when  we 
return  to  England,  for  Dr.  Holland  is  among  the  most  interesting 
men  I  have  met.  He  is  now  becoming  one  of  the  most  famous  and 
fashionable  of  the  London  physicians. 

The  day  after  we  reached  London  the  kind  Sir  Francis  Doyle  came 
to  see  us,  and  invited  us  so  very  pleasantly  to  the  Tower,  both  to  see 
it  and  to  dine  with  him,  that  we  could  not  refuse,  though  we  could 
ill  give  the  time  to  it.  So  on  Saturday  we  drove  to  the  Tower,  four 
miles  off ;  but  the  dense  crowds  in  the  Strand  and  the  other  protracted 
thoroughfares,  with  two,  three,  and  sometimes  four  files  of  carriages 
abreast,  reaching  as  far  as  the  eye  could  follow  them,  often  stopped 

us  several  minutes  at  a  time It  was  a  part  of  our  amusement, 

during  an  hour  or  more  we  were  in  reaching  the  Tower,  to  watch 
these  different  currents,  embarrassments,  and  contests  of  the  differ 
ent  sorts  of  passengers.  At  last  we  arrived,  and,  passing  the  draw 
bridge,  drove  through  streets  and  ways  that  seemed  quite  long,  to  the 
Governor's  house.  It  is  one  of  the  examples  of  the  pleasant  abuses 
with  which  England  abounds,  that  the  Duke  of  Wellington  is  Gov- 

*  Christine  Bonaparte.    See  ante,  p.  183,  and  note. 


M.  44.]  THE  TOWER  OF  LONDON.  447 

ernor  of  the  Tower,  with  a  good  salary,  and  knows  nothing  about  it ; 
that  Sir  Francis  Doyle  is  his  lieutenant,  with  another  large  salary, 
and  resides  there  only  two  months  in  the  year  ;  and  that  somebody 
else,  with  a  third  salary,  is  the  really  efficient  and  responsible  per 
son 

Lunch  was  ready  immediately,  and  as  soon  as  it  was  ended,  Sir 
Francis  and  Miss  Doyle  went  over  the  Tower  with  us,  visiting  chiefly 

those  parts  not  shown  to  strangers,  as  we  had  seen  the  rest 

First  we  went  to  the  ancient  records,  where  we  saw  the  autographs 
of  the  English  monarchs,  from  the  time  when  they  were  able  to  write, 
which  is  Edward  the  Fourth's.  The  most  curious  to  me  was  the 
handwriting  of  Richard  III.,  bold  and  vigorous,  plainly  legible,  and, 
especially  in  a  document  touching  Buckingham,  written  with  choice 
phraseology  considering  the  date.  We  saw,  too,  the  Prayer- Book  of 
1662,  with  the  only  authority  that  still  exists  for  its  use,  and  the  great 
seal  of  England  attached  to  it  to  vouch  for  its  authenticity  ;  the  pious 
Charles  II.  being  of  course  the  official  corner-stone  on  which  this  por 
tion  of  the  religion  of  the  monarchy  has  reposed  for  a  century  and  a 
half.  .... 

Here  [in  the  White  Tower]  we  were  shown  the  Council  Chamber 
of  the  ancient  kings  of  England,  hardly  altered  at  all  ;  the  very  room 
in  which  Richard  III.  bared  his  arm,  and  accused  Hastings  of  witch 
craft  in  shrivelling  it.  We  went  to  the  very  window  where  he  stood 
when  he  witnessed  the  instant  execution  of  his  victim,  and  saw  the 
very  spot,  at  the  corner  of  the  old  chapel,  where  the  block  was  laid  for 
it.  It  seemed  to  bring  the  ancient  horrors  of  those  troubled  times 
extremely  near  to  us 

In  the  Governor's  house  we  found  other  strange  memorials  of  the 
past.  The  room  of  Miss  Doyle  was  that  in  which  the  Council  sat, 
before  whom  Guy  Fawkes  and  his  conspirators  were  tried  ;  and  an 
account  of  the  whole  is  carved  on  one  side  of  the  room  by  order  of 
one  of  its  members,  and  the  names  of  all  of  them  and  of  all  the 
culprits  attached  to  it.  Over  the  fireplace  is  a  head  of  James  I. 

as  large  as  life,  beautifully  carved  in  oak In  short,  we  saw 

whatever  the  most  exact  and  kind  attention  could  find  to  amuse 
us  within  the  wide  range  of  the  Tower,  and  came  away  promising 
to  dine  with  them  on  Monday 

The  dinner  [on  Monday]  was  elegant,  and  truly  comfortable. 
Colonel  Hume,  and  two  or  three  other  high  officers  of  the  proud 
and  fashionable  "  Guards  "  ;  Mr.  Seymour,  just  setting  out  for  a  jour 
ney  to  Egypt  and  the  East ;  Mr.  Hart  Davis  ;  young  Mr.  Doyle  ; 


448  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1835. 

and  two  or  three  other  agreeable  people,  constituted  the  party 

We  had  a  most  pleasant  time.  Indeed,  the  very  minute  and  con 
sistent,  but  altogether  unobtrusive  attentions  and  kindness  of  Sir 
Francis  make  all  feel  at  their  ease  and  happy  in  his  house  ;  and  the 
conversation,  which  was  chiefly  literary,  with  a  mixture  of  politics 
and  nationalities,  was  as  agreeable  as  could  be  desired 

One  day,  as  we  came  back  from  Wimbledon  and  Putney,  .... 
we  drove  to  Dr.  Soinerville's,  and  passed  an  hour  with  him  and  his 
truly  simple,  kind-hearted,  astonishing  wife.  He  is  a  good,  round, 
easy  person,  by  no  means  without  talent,  or  fair  scientific  knowledge, 
both  in  his  profession  and  out  of  it,  but  enjoys  his  comfortable  place 
as  head  of  the  medical  part  of  this  grand  establishment,  given  out  of 
respect  to  his  wife's  rare  merits.  She  is  the  daughter  of  one  of  the 
Fairfax  family,  a  branch  of  which  is  in  Virginia,  —  Lord  Fairfax, 
Washington's  friend,  was  of  the  same  family,  —  a  little,  small,  quiet, 
kindly  person  of  about  fifty,  with  a  voice  "  soft,  gentle,  and  low,  ever 
an  excellent  thing  in  woman  " ;  a  good  mother,  who  has  educated  her 
family  herself,  and  done  it  well  and  successfully  ;  a  good  wife,  man 
aging  her  household  judiciously  ;  a  good  friend,  as  Lady  Byron  knows, 
to  whose  daughter,  Lady  King,  she  has  been  of  great  practical  use  ; 
a  domestic  person,  yet  receiving  and  enjoying  a  great  deal  of  the 
best  scientific  and  literary  society,  and  frequenting  occasionally  the 
most  exclusive  and  fashionable  ;  skilled  in  the  modern  languages,  two 
of  which  she  speaks  fluently ;  painting  beautifully  in  oil-colors,  of 
which  we  saw  many  specimens  ;  and  one  of  the  mosj;  extraordinary 
mathematicians  alive,  of  whom  all  the  rest  speak  with  the  greatest 
kindness  and  admiration. 

The  hour  we  passed  with  her  would  yet  have  informed  us  of  noth 
ing  of  all  this,  except  that  she  is  a  most  gentle?  quiet,  and  kind-hearted 
person.  When  we  were  obliged  to  come  away,  they  said  so  much 
about  our  visiting  them  again,  that  we  promised  to  dine  with  them  on 
Wednesday,  the  day  but  one  before  we  should  leave  London,  without 
company.  We  went,  therefore,  and  found  only  Mr.  Babbage,  so  that 
we  had  as  agreeable  a  dinner  as  we  well  could  have,  talking  upon  all 
sorts  of  subjects  until  very  late,  with  great  vivacity 

English  kindness  was  uniform  and  consistent  to  the  last,  but  I  do 
not  recollect  anything  worth  noting  except  a  visit  to,  Wilkie,  the 
painter,  at  Kensington,  to  which  he  invited  me  at  Dublin.  I  found 
him  living  very  comfortably,  but  very  much  like  an  artist.  With 
great  good-nature  and  a  strong  desire  to  please,  not  unmixed  with 
Scotch  shrewdness,  he  talked  a  good  deal  and  pleasantly  about  his 


M.  44.]  SIK  DAVID  WILKIE.  449 

profession,  and  showed  me  a  quantity  of  rough  sketches,  and  two 
pictures  now  in  progress.  Of  the  sketches,  those  he  made  in  Spain 
are  the  most  picturesque ;  those  he  has  lately  made  in  Ireland  are 
the  most  interesting It  is  evidently  Wilkie's  theory  and  pur 
pose  to  find  out  what  is  striking  and  characteristic  in  his  own  times, 
and  turn  them  to  account  on  canvas,  by  showing  them  in  a  poetical 
light,  and  on  their  picturesque  side.  Of  late  he  has  been  more  am 
bitious  in  his  subjects,  though,  I  think,  still  within  these  limits.  ' 


cc 


450  LIFE  OF  GEOEGE  TICKNOR.  [1835. 


CHAPTEE    XXIII. 

Brussels.  —  Bonn.  —  Weimar.  —  Winter  in  Dresden.  —  Intellectual  and 
Social  Resources.  —  Tieck.  —  Baron  Lindenau.  —  Court  and  Royal 
Family. 

LEAVING  London  on  the  23d  of  October,  with  intent  to 
pass  the  winter  in  Dresden,  the  first  point  of  pause  on  the 
Continent  was  Brussels,  where  Mr.  Ticknor  arrived  on  the  6th 
of  November,  but,  to  his  regret,  found  that  his  friend,  Mr.  Hugli 
S.  Legare,  —  then  United  States  Charge"  d' Affaires  in  Belgium, 
—  was  in  Paris.  The  season,  of  course,  was  dull,  the  Court 
absent,  and  little  of  interest  in  the  local  society.  Mr.  Ticknor, 
however,  saw  M.  Quetelet  and  one  or  two  other  persons  whom 
he  was  glad  to  know,  and  describes,  in  the  following  entry  in  his 
journal,  the  beginning  of  a  delightful  acquaintance  with  a  charm 
ing  circle. 

JOURNAL. 

One  day  I  passed  very  agreeably  with  the  Marquis  Arconati  and 
his  family,  including  the  Count  Arrivabene*  and  two  other  Italian 
exiles.  They  live,  except  in  winter,  at  the  Castle  of  Gaesbeck,  about 
eight  miles  from  Brussels,  a  fine,  large  old  pile  of  building,  connected 
in  history  with  the  troubles  of  Holland,  and  full  of  recollections  of 
that  disastrous  period.  It  is  pleasantly  situated  on  the  edge  of  a 
valley,  upon  which  it  looks  clown,  and  there  they  live  as  happily  as 
exiles  can.  They  were  all  implicated  in  the  revolutionary  move 
ments  in  Italy,  of  which  Pellico,  Confalonieri,  etc.,  were  a  part,  and 
for  the  last  twelve  years  Arconati  and  Arrivabene  have  been  under 
sentence  of  death.  They  are  all  people  of  most  agreeable  intellectual 
culture,  and  Arrivabene,  Berchet,  and  Salviati  are  authors  of  reputa 
tion  ;  but  the  fortunes  of  all  of  them  were  confiscated  or  sequestered 
when  sentence  was  issued  against  their  persons. 

Arconati,  however,  had  large  estates  and  means  beyond  the  reach 

*  Count  Giovanni  Arrivabene,  a  writer  on  Political  Economy. 


JE.  44.]  GAESBECK.  451 

of  the  Austrian  power,  as  well  as  still  larger  ones  within  it.  But 
though  his  incomes  are  diminished,  they  still  enable  him  to  live  in 
great  luxury,  which  he  most  generously  and  pleasantly  shares  with  his 
less  fortunate  fellow-sufferers. 

It  was  strange  to  find  everything  in  relation  to  the  modes  of  living 
arranged  in  a  Dutch  chateau  upon  Italian  habits  and  fashions.  The 
day  was  cold  and  bright,  ice  having  formed  a  little  over  night,  but  the 
rooms,  filled  with  fine  furniture  and  pictures,  had  no  carpets,  and  only 
one  had  a  fire.  They  dislike — with  a  true  Italian  repugnance — direct 
heat,  and  after  we  had  taken  a  little  walk  round  the  grounds,  —  which 
made  Mad.  Arconati  shudder,  in  the  rich,  warm  sun,  and  on  which 
her  sister  would  not  venture,  —  we  all  went  into  a  grand  room  in  one 
of  the  round  towers  of  the  castle,  where,  the  walls  being  about  six 
teen  feet  thick,  that  pleasant  moderate  temperature  is  preserved  which 
the  people  of  the  South  of  Europe  prefer  to  every  other.  There  we 
talked  until  dinner. 

Mad.  Arconati  is  a  sweet,  winning,  intellectual  lady  of  the  simplest 
manners,  entirely  devoted  to  her  husband,  whose  fortunes  she  has  fol 
lowed  in  his  exile,  —  though  she  might  have  lived  in  great  splendor 
at  Milan,  —  and  to  her  son,  who  is  now  a  student  at  Bonn  of  much 
promise.  The  Marquis  is  a  frank,  high-minded  gentleman,  and 
Arrivabene  is  an  original  thinker,  who  is  much  valued  by  Whately, 
Senior,  and  that  set  of  men,  and  who  was  consulted  upon  the  subject 
of  the  English  Poor- Laws  by  the  committee  of  Parliament,  in  whose 
proceedings  his  report  fills  a  considerable  space. 

Salviati  has  just  published  an  Italian  translation  of  Goethe's  "  Faust," 
a  bold,  and  —  from  what  I  saw  of  it  —  not  a  successful  undertaking, 
but  he  talked  very  agreeably.  Indeed,  we  passed  an  hour  or  two 
very  pleasantly  in  that  grand  old  room,  covered  with  recollections  of 
the  days  of  Egmont  and  William  of  Orange,  and  lighted  only  with 
painted  glass,  which  suited  well  to  the  tone  of  the  room  itself. 

Dinner  followed.  It  was  served  in  a  room  without  a  fire  and 
miserably  chilling  and  cold.  The  table  was  covered,  after  the  Italian 
fashion,  with  an  abundant  and  beautiful  dessert  of  fruit,  ornamented 
with  flowers,  and  various  wines  ;  but  the  soup,  meats,  etc.,  were  car 
ried  round  by  the  servants.  The  cooking,  service,  and  so  on,  were  all 
excellent,  but  it  was  so  cold  it  was  not  possible  to  enjoy  it,  at  least 
not  for  me.  Indeed,  they  all  complained,  and  as  soon  as  we  could 
get  through  seven  or  eight  courses  we  went  into  the  room  with  a  fire, 
warmed  ourselves  and  took  coffee,  and  had  more  very  pleasant  con 
versation,  after  which  I  parted  from  them  and  came  back  to  Brussels. 


452  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1835. 

It  was  a  most  agreeable  visit,  and  yet  .there  was  something  strange 
and  sad  about  it ;  not  only  because  the  Italian  customs  and  feelings  I 
witnessed  formed  such  a  contrast  with  the  climate  and  circumstances 
in  which  I  found  them,  but  because  I  could  not  well  avoid  constantly 
remembering  that  two  of  the  high-minded,  intellectual  persons  with 
whom  I  was  sitting  and  conversing  were  under  sentence  of  death,  and 
two  others  liable  to  imprisonment  for  life  if  they  could  be  found 
within  the  grasp  of  Austrian  power. 

Waterloo.  —  Certainly  we  did  not  pass  six  days  in  Brussels  without 
giving  one  of  them  to  Waterloo,  which  is  only  nine  miles  off ;  and  I 
must  needs  say  that  I  have  seldom  passed  one  of  the  sort  in  a  manner 
so  entirely  satisfactory.  It  was  all  plain  ;  the  battle,  the  positions,  the 
movements,  everything  ;  and  all  quite  intelligible  at  a  single  glance, 
from  the  top  of  the  vast  mound  erected  by  the  Belgians  in  honor  of 
the  victory.  I  will  only  mention  a  few  things  which  surprised  me. 

First.  We  passed,  of  course,  through  the  forest  of  Soignies,  and  I 
found  it  much  larger  than  I  anticipated.  The  road  from  Brussels 
lies  through  it  the  greater  part  of  the  way  ;  and  in  general  it  is  about 
twenty-one  miles  long  and  nine  broad,  so  that  the  English,  retreating 
from  Ligny  and  Quatre  Bras  after  the  battles  of  the  16th  of  June, 
had  no  choice  but  to  fight  here.  They  could  fall  back  no  farther. 

Second.  Immediately  on  emerging  from  the  forest,  we  came  upon 
the  poor  little  village  of  Waterloo,  with  its  rather  plain  church.  It 
was  here  the  Duke  of  Wellington  fixed  his  headquarters  during  the 
night  of  the  17th ;  but  the  little  hamlet  of  Mont  St.  Jean  is  full  a 
mile  in  front  of  it,  and  the  farm-house  of  Mont  St.  Jean,  which  was 
exactly  in  the  rear  of  the  British  centre,  is  a  sort  of  outpost  still 
farther  on  than  the  hamlet  itself.  I  was  surprised  to  find  these 
distances  so  great. 

Third.  From  the  farm-house  of  Mont  St.  Jean  to  La  Haye  Sainte 
was  not  above  twenty-five  hundred  feet,  and  from  La  Haye  Sainte  to 
La  Belle  Alliance,  where  the  French  centre  passed  the  night  before 
the  battle,  is  just  about  twenty-five  hundred  feet  more,  so  that  the 
armies  during  that  night  were  about  three  thousand  feet  only  apart, 
and  their  outposts  and  videttes  not  above  five  hundred  feet.  I  was 
greatly  surprised  to  find  these  distances  so  small,  particularly  the  last. 

Fourth.  We  commonly  hear  of  the  two  armies  being  encamped 
before  the  battle  on  two  parallel  ranges  of  hills,  with  a  valley  be 
tween.  The  land  undulates  a  little,  but  there  is  nothing  to  be  seen 
that  deserves  the  name  either  of  hill  or  of  valley. 

Fifth.     The  road  by  which  the  two  armies  had  come  up  from  the  bat- 


M.  44.]  WATERLOO.  453 

ties  of  Ligny  and  Quatre  Bras  is  an  excellent,  broad,  well-built  road, 
and  divided  each  of  the  contending  armies  into  about  two  equal  parts. 

Sixth.  The  monuments  on  the  battle-ground  —  such  as  the  Cha 
teau  of  Hougoumont,  the  Ferme  of  Mont  St.  Jean,  La  Belle  Alliance, 
Papelotte,  and  Merke  Braine  —  were  all  as  plainly  and  distinctly 
seen  from  the  top  of  the  great  mound  as  the  Common  and  its  neigh 
borhood,  the  bridges  and  the  Neck,  are  seen  from  the  top  of  our  State 
House  in  Boston 

The  great  thing  for  which  you  go  to  Waterloo  you  certainly  ob 
tain,  that  is,  a  perfectly  clear  and  satisfactory  idea  of  the  battle  ;  and 
not  of  the  battle  merely,  but  of  that  extraordinary  campaign  which, 
though  it  lasted  but  four  days,  swept  away  fifty  thousand  human 
beings  and  decided  the  fate  of  Europe.  On  looking  it  all  over,  and 
considering  the  state  of  the  battle  at  four  o'clock,  which  had  begun 
at  eleven,  I  came  somewhat  unexpectedly  to  the  conclusion  that,  if 
the  Prussians  had  not  come  up,  the  English  would  have  been  beaten. 
This,  in  fact,  I  understand  is  now  the  general  opinion,  but  it  certainly 
was  not  so  held  in  England  soon  after  the  battle,  and  it  was  not  my 
own  impression  till  I  had  been  over  the  field. 

November  11.  —  We  remained  over  the  10th  November  at  Bonn,  and, 
besides  going  to  see  what  relates  to  the  University,  drove  into  the  en 
virons  and  saw  the  beautiful  views  of  the  Rhine,  with  its  flying  bridge 
of  boats,  and  the  picturesque  hills  of  Godesberg,  and  the  Siebenge- 
birge,  from  the  Kreuzberg,  as  well  as  from  the  Alte  Zoll,  which  over 
looks  the  river  just  below  the  palace.  They  are  worthy  of  their  great 
reputation. 

I  found  there,  too,  some  of  my  old  friends,  and  passed  the  little 
time  I  could  give  to  such  purposes  most  agreeably.  The  first  evening 
I  went  to  see  Schlegel.  He  is,  of  course,  a  good  deal  changed  since  I 
saw  him  in  1817,  for  he  is  now,  I  suppose,  about  seventy  years  old, 
but  he  is  fresh  and  active.  He  is  much  occupied,  as  he  has  been  the 
last  sixteen  or  eighteen  years,  with  Sanscrit,  about  which  he  has 
published  a  good  deal  and  holds  the  first  rank  ;  but  he  lectures  here 
on  two  or  three  subjects  every  semestre,  and  in  the  course  of  the 
last  year  on  Homer,  on  Roman  history,  and  on  the  German  language, 
lecturing  on  the  first  two  in  the  Latin  language,  extemporaneously, 
which  I  am  told  he  does  very  well.  He  talked  to  me  about  his 
Sanscrit  a  little  more  than  I  cared  to  have  him,  but  that  is  the  privi 
lege  of  age  ;  and  he  still  loves  to  talk  politics,  as  he  always  did,  and 
show  his  knowledge  in  remote  departments  where  you  would  least 
claim  anything  from  him.  But  it  is  a  pardonable  vanity. 


454  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1835. 

On  my  return  from  Schlegel's,  I  had  a  visit  from  Welcker,  still  the 
same  warm-hearted,  kindly  spirit  I  always  found  him.  He  is  the 
head  librarian,  and  to  his  exertions  the  University  owes  the  collection 
of  casts  which  is  under  his  care,  and  which  he  uses  in  his  lectures  on 
Antiquity.  He  went  with  us  over  the  University  and  spent  a  large 
part  of  the  day  in  kind  attentions,  yesterday.  I  heard  him  lecture  on 
Mythology  in  the  evening,  and  afterwards  went  with  him  to  the  house 
of  Professor  Naumann,  a  very  distinguished  member  of  the  Medical 
Faculty,  where,  with  Schlegel  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Naumann,  I  passed 
a  couple  of  hours  most  agreeably.  Schlegel  was  very  entertaining, 
though  very  vain. 

November  16.  —  To-day  we  passed  through  Gotha,  and  Erfurt,  which 
is  Prussian,  and  then  came  on  in  good  season  to  Weimar,  the  weather 
mild  and  no  snow  to  be  seen.  There  was  a  great  appearance  of  com 
fort  along  our  road,  and  that  peculiar  air  of  advanced  civilization 
which  provides  not  only  for  the  physical  well-being  of  the  whole 
people,  but  for  their  enjoyment  of  what  is  beautiful  in  nature  and  the 
arts,  which  I  think  is  characteristic  of  the  rule  and  influence  of  the 
Saxon  families,  wherever  they  have  been  extended.  The  ground  was 
familiar  to  me.  Some  of  it  I  passed  over  more  than  once  in  1816, 
and  I  was  not  sorry  to  find  that  I  had  a  fresh  recollection  of  what  I 
saw,  and  that  my  impression  of  the  hiunanity  and  wisdom  of  these 
little  governments,  from  the  appearance  of  the  country  and  the 
people,  is  the  same  now  that  it  was  formerly.  Everybody  here  can 
read  and  write,  and  it  is  even  a  punishable  offence  in  parents  not  to 
send  their  children  to  school.  The  love  of  what  is  beautiful,  too, 
descends  much  lower  in  society,  I  think,  than  it  does  anywhere  else. 

I  went  in  the  evening  to  see  my  old  friend  Von  Froriep,  and  found 
him  changed  from  a  young  man  to  a  grandfather,  but  as  active  as  ever. 

I  was  struck  at  Bonn  with  having  Nasse,  of  the  Medical  Faculty, 
ask  me  about  Dr.  Gould  and  the  writers  for  the  "  Boston  Medical 
Journal" ;  and  I  was  again  struck  this  evening  to  find  Froriep  making 
an  abstract  of  an  article  on  Nightmare,  from  a  very  recent  New  York 
medical  journal,  of  which  he  spoke  with  great  interest.  This,  how 
ever,  is  only  a  specimen  of  the  German  spirit  of  inquiry.  I  imder- 
stand  there  are  five  medical  journals  in  Germany,  which  give  quarter- 
yearly  a  regular  account  of  what  is  contained  in  the  medical  journals 
of  the  United  States.  Froriep  was  familiar  with  all  that  relates  to 
us  in  these  particulars,  and  had,  I  found,  all  the  statistics  of  our 
medical  schools  and  whatever  relates  to  medicine  in  the  United 
States.  But  he  is  a  remarkable  man 


JE.  44.]  GOETHE'S  HOUSE.  455 

November  17.  —  Mr.  Von  Froriep  called  on  us  this  morning  with 
his  daughter,  —  an  intelligent,  well-bred  lady,  who  speaks  very  good 
English,  —  and  carried  us  to  see  the  public  library.  I  found  Riemer 
there  as  head  librarian,  whom  I  knew  here  nineteen  years  ago  ;  an 
interesting,  learned  man,  who  was  long  Goethe's  private  secretary. 
We  barely  went  over  the  rooms,  most  of  which  I  recollected  well 
enough.  The  whole  does  honor  to  the  little  principality  which  sus 
tains  it 

In  the  afternoon  we  went  to  see  Goethe's  house.  I  remembered 
the  simple,  handsome  staircase,  and  the  statues  that  ornament  it, 
perfectly  well ;  but  the  rooms  we  saw,  not  being  the  common  house 
hold  rooms,  were  entirely  new  to  me.  His  study  and  bedroom  adja 
cent  were  exactly  as  he  left  them  at  the  moment  of  death  ;  the  chairs, 
the  table,  the  cushions,  the  books,  the  papers,  —  everything,  in  short, 
as  if  he  were  only  gone  out  for  an  hour.  They  were,  however,  any 
thing  rather  than  cheerful  and  agreeable  rooms.  I  should,  indeed, 
hardly  have  called  them  comfortable  ;  but  he  occupied  them  for  nearly 
forty  years,  and  they  are,  therefore,  curious,  but  nothing  else.  The 
sleeping-room  was  a  wretched  little  closet,  with  one  window  and  no 
fireplace,  a  very  ordinary  bed  without  curtains,  and  the  poor  arm 
chair  in  which  he  died.  The  whole  was,  indeed,  very  triste.  I  was 
most  interested  with  looking  at  a  copy  of  the  last  edition  of  his  own 
Works,  which  was  a  good  deal  used,  and  with  turning  over  the  origi 
nal  manuscript  of  "  Goetz  of  Berlichingen,"  and  the  "  Roman  Elegies." 

The  other  rooms  contained  his  different  collections  in  science  and 
the  arts  ;  a  very  good  cabinet  for  mineralogy  and  geology,  a  great 
deal  in  botany,  quantities  of  small  remains  of  antiquity,  Roman  and 
Greek,  and  copies  of  such  remains,  medals,  and  coins  in  great  abun 
dance,  drawings  and  engravings.  Of  the  last  the  number  was  enor 
mous  ;  many  thousand,  arranged  according  to  the  schools  and  masters, 
and  on  the  whole  more  interesting  than  anything  else  I  saw  in  the 
house. 

The  whole,  in  the  way  it  is  now  exhibited,  seemed  to  me  a  monu 
ment  of  the  vanity  of  a  man  who  was  spoiled  by  a  life  —  a  very  long 
life  —  of  constant,  uniform  success,  every  wish  not  only  fulfilled  but 
anticipated,  so  that  he  came  at  last  to  think  whatever  related  to  him 
self  to.  be  of  great  consequence  to  the  whole  world.  He  therefore 
published,  or  left  orders  to  publish,  everything  he  had  ever  written, 
much  of  which  is  mere  waste-paper  ;  and  now  his  will  further  directs 
all  the  little  commonplace  arrangements  of  a  very  ordinary  study  and 
sleeping-room  to  be  shown  to  strangers,  as  matters  of  moment  and 


456  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1835. 

interest.  The  whole  German,  nation  is,  however,  in  some  degree 
responsible  for  this,  for  during  the  last  five-and-twenty  years  of  his 
life  he  was  humored  and  worshipped  in  a  way  that  I  think  no  author 
ever  was  before 

DRESDEN,  November  20,  1835.  —  It  seems  as  if  our  arrival  in  each 
considerable  place  where  we  are  to  stop  were  to  be  marked  to  us  by 
some  striking  and  sad  event.  We  had  hardly  reached  London  when 
we  were  overtaken  with  news  of  James  Mason's  death,  in  whose  grave 
were  buried  as  many  fond  hopes  as  could  well  be  at  once  disap 
pointed.*  In  Dublin,  the  letters  we  found  waiting  for  us  announced 
the  death  of  our  sweet  niece,  Catherine  Dwight,t  one  of  those  sor 
rows  for  which  a  long  anticipation  does  not  prepare  the  hearts  of  those 
who  are  most  familiarly  attached  ;  and  the  death  of  Mrs.  Kenyon, 
with  whom,  only  a  few  days  before,  we  had  dined  in  London,  full  of 
vigorous  health  and  the  gayest  spirits,  a  dreadful  contrast  to  the  let 
ter  of  her  husband  to  me  written  the  day  before  her  burial.  And 
now,  here  in  Dresden,  the  first  letter  I  opened,  on  my  arrival  this 
morning,  was  one  from  his  uncle,  announcing  to  us  Lord  Milton's 
death,  of  a  violent  typhus  fever,  whom  at  this  moment  I  seem  to  see 
before  me,  eager  with  life  and  spirits,  leading  off  in  the  fox-chase  at 
Wentworth,  little  thinking  that  in  a  short  month  he  would  be  laid 
with  the  rest  of  his  family  in  York  Minster,  where  I  had  seen  him 
constantly  at  the  Festival,  with  his  young  and  happy  wife. 

Such  changes,  perhaps,  strike  us  more  when  we  are  away  from 
home,  and  from  our  usual  supports  and  resources  ;  but  certainly  four 
such,  coming  in  such  rapid  succession,  would  be  remarkable  at  any 
time 

Again  in  the  evening  we  had  another  admonition.  A  bright  but 
flaring  light,  illuminating  the  high  buildings  around  the  square  on 
which  we  live,  flashed  in  at  our  windows  ;  we  started  up,  and  saw 
about  an  hundred  young  men  with  large  torches,  moving  slowly  and 
solemnly  forward  in  a  hollow  square,  surrounded  with  a  dense  crowd, 
that  pressed  on  in  silence.  It  was  a  body  of  students  connected 
with  one  of  the  public  institutions  of  the  city  going  to  sing  hymns, 
after  the  fashion  of  the  country,  before  the  house  of  Bottiger,  the 
night  previous  to  his  burial ;  and  the  effect  of  the  silent  multitude, 
illuminated  by  the  torches  which  the  young  men  tossed  wildly  about 
as  they  advanced  in  absolute  silence,  was  very  picturesque  and  im 
posing.  To  me  it  was  very  sad.  When  I  was  here  in  1816  I  had 

*  A  son  of  his  old  friend,  Mr.  Jeremiah  Mason. 
t  Daughter  of  Mrs.  Ticknor's  eldest  sister. 


M.  44.]  LUDWIG  TIECK.  457 

known  Bottiger  better  than  anybody  else,  and  I  had  counted  much 
upon  meeting  him  again  and  profiting  by  his  great  learning.  I  was 
even  bringing  him  a  book  from  Welcker,  in  Bonn,  and  was  charged 
with  messages  for  him  from  Schorn  and  Froriep,  in  Weimar  ;  so 
sudden  had  been  his  death,  though  in  advanced  years,  for  he  was 
seventy-six  years  old.  In  his  particular  department,  —  which  was 
archaeology,  —  he  has  left  no  man  in  Germany  who  can  fill  his  place. 

November  29.  —  The  last  week  I  have  given  partly  to  making  some 
necessary  arrangements*  and  partly  to  making  a  few  acquaintance, 
such  as  I  feel  pretty  sure  we  shall  be  glad  to  preserve.  In  the  way 
of  acquaintance,  it  so  chanced  that  I  began  with  Tieck,  who,  since 
Goethe's  death,  is  the  acknowledged  head  of  German  literature.  He 
seems  past  sixty  ;  stout  and  well-built,  with  a  countenance  still  fine, 
and  which  must  have  been  decidedly  handsome,  but  a  good  deal 
broken  in  his  person  and  bent  with  the  gout.  He  has  an  air  of 
decision  about  him  that  is  not  to  be  mistaken,  and  is,  I  dare  say, 
somewhat  whimsical  and  peculiar  in  his  opinions  and  notions,  as 
some  of  his  books  intimate,  particularly  what  he  has  published  on 
the  English  drama. 

But  I  think  he  is  agreeable  ;  and  he  has  a  great  deal  of  knowledge, 
both  in  old  English  and  old  Spanish  literature.  His  collection  of 
Spanish  books  surprised  me.  It  is  a  great  deal  better  than  Lord 
Holland's,  a  great  deal  better  than  any  one  collection  in  England ; 
but  still,  on  most  points,  not  so  good  as  mine.  He  has  been  forty 
years  in  gathering  it,  and  he  has  a  very  minute,  curious,  and  critical 
knowledge  of  its  contents  ;  but  his  knowledge  of  Spanish  literature 
goes  no  further  than  his  own  books  will  carry  him,  and  in  some 
parts  of  it  I  remarked  quite  a  striking  ignorance,  which  surprised  me 
very  much  until  I  found  how  it  happened.  I  have  passed  two  even 
ings  with  him,  and,  as  he  keeps  open  house  very  simply  and  kindly, 
after  the  German  fashion,  I  think  I  shall  go  there  frequently. 

The  next  acquaintance  I  made  was  that  of  the  Minister  of  State, 
Von  Lindenau.  He  is  a  mathematician  and  astronomer  by  education 

*  Of  the  arrangements  to  which  he  alluded,  Mr.  Ticknor  says  further :  "  We 
have  engaged  in  the  Hotel  de  Borne  a  suite  of  six  excellent  rooms  opening  into 
each  other,  and  another  quite  near  them  for  my  man-servant,  ....  and  I  have 
engaged  a  nicer  carriage  than  I  could  get  in  London,  with  coachman  and  foot 
man.  Our  rooms  are  on  the  Neue  Markt,  a  very  neat,  lively  square,  the 

pleasantest  in  Dresden,  near  the  palace  and  the  theatre As  to  teachers, 

the  number  of  those  who  are  good  is  so  great  that  I  have  been  a  little  em 
barrassed  in  the  choice." 

VOL.  i.  20 


458  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1835. 

and  choice,  and,  after  Baron  Zach  left  the  Observatory  at  Gotha,  was 
for  several  years  the  head  of  it.  How  he  came  at  the  head  of  affairs 
in  Saxony  I  know  not ;  but  up  to  1830,  and  indeed  for  some  time 
after  that  revolution,  he  had  the  Portfolio  of  the  Interior.  He  is 
liberal  in  his  opinions,  but  still,  not  being  satisfied  with  the  course 
of  affairs,  he  resigned  his  place  two  or  three  years  ago.  This,  how 
ever,  created  so  much  uneasiness  in  the  country,  that  he  was  induced 
to  keep  the  place  of  President  of  the  Council ;  and,  in  order  to  have 
something  to  do,  chose  the  Public  Libraries,  the  Collections  in  the 
Arts  and  Sciences,  etc.,  and  the  Institutions  for  the  Poor  as  his  de 
partment,  but  took  no  portfolio.  His  salary  is  a  thousand  rix  dollars, 
fixed  by  himself ;  but,  being  a  man  of  good  property,  he  subscribed 
the  same  day  fifteen  hundred  dollars  towards  the  support  of  the  poor. 
He  is  about  fifty  years  old  ;  a  bachelor,  living  very  simply  ;  goes  into 
no  company  and  receives  little  ;  studies  mathematics  in  his  fine  library 
of  about  10,000  volumes  ;  and,  though  he  has  so  little  charge  in  the 
state  directly,  has  the  reputation  of  controlling  its  policy  and  its 
more  general  interests  more  than  any  other  of  the  Ministry. 

I  found  him  prompt,  ready,  business-like.  On  the  points  where  I 
wanted  some  information  from  him  he  was  clear  and  precise,  kind  and 
useful.  On  the  points  where  he  was  disposed  to  make  conversation 
with  me,  —  especially  in  all  that  relates  to  America,  —  he  was  acute 
and  sagacious  ;  the  only  person  I  have  yet  found  who  seemed  to  have 
right  notions  about  De  Tocqueville's  book.  His  manner  is  very  alert, 
.and  uncommonly  agreeable. 

Early  in  the  week  I  delivered  my  letters  from  Lord  Palmerston  and 
Miss  Edgeworth  to  the  British  Minister  here,  and  we  have,  in  conse 
quence,  been  most  kindly  received.  He  is  the  son  of  Lord  Granard, 
and  nephew  of  the  late  Marquis  of  Hastings,  —  better  known  as  the 
Prince  of  Wales's  Earl  of  Moira  and  the  South  Carolina  Lord  Eaw- 
don,  —  and  he  lives  here  in  a  very  pleasant,  hospitable,  and  comfort 
able  style,  as  a  bachelor.  His  sister,  Lady  Rancliffe,  —  now,  I  think, 
just  about  fifty,  —  pleasant  and  good-natured,  is  here  on  a  visit  to 
him.  Mr.  Forbes  is,  I  should  think,  not  far  from  the  age  of  his 
sister,  and  has  been  for  a  great  many  years  in  the  diplomatic  service 
of  England,  —  at  Lisbon,  Vienna,  etc.,  —  but  he  has  never  been  a  full 
minister  till  he  was  sent  as  such  to  this  Court,  two  or  three  years  ago. 
He  seems  extremely  good-humored,  and  much  disposed  to  do  what 
will  be  useful  and  agreeable  to  us,  and  came  with  Lady  Rancliffe  and 
spent  part  of  last  evening  with  us. 

One  evening  he  carried  me  to  the  house  of  General  Watzdorff,  — 


M.  44.]  DRESDEN.  459 

the  principal  officer  in  the  King's  household,  —  who  receives  once  a 
week.  There  were  about  sixty  or  eighty  persons  present,  including 
the  whole  diplomatic  corps  and  those  who  are  attached  to  the  Court. 
The  rooms  were  very  good  and  comfortable,  up  two  pair  of  stairs, 
according  to  a  fashion  I  find  very  common  in  Dresden  ;  the  enter 
tainment,  tea,  ices,  fruit,  etc.,  with  three  or  four  card-tables,  and 
everything  as  easy  as  possible.  But  it  is  the  lightest  form  of  society. 
French  was  the  only  language  spoken,  and  no  two  people  seemed  to 
talk  together  above  five  minutes.  It  began,  I  believe,  about  half  past 
eight  o'clock,  and  by  half  past  ten  it  was  all  over.  This,  however,  is 
the  custom  here,  where  all  the  hours  are  early,  both  in  families  and 
society.  I  was  presented  to  most  of  the  foreign  ministers  and  leading 
persons  present ;  and,  though  it  was  neither  a  very  interesting  nor  a 
very  amusing  evening,  I  dare  say  I  shall  go  there  occasionally  to  see 
what  it  is.  The  old  General  Watzdorif  himself — between  seventy 
and  eighty  —  seemed  a  very  good,  kind  person.  He  was  Saxon  Min 
ister  in  St.  Petersburg  in  1810-12,  and  knew  Mr.  Adams  very  well, 
to  whose  son  Charles  he  was  godfather. 

December  6.  —  We  dined  one  day  at  half  past  one  o'clock  at  Count 
Bose's,*  that  being  half  an  hour  later  than  the  King's  dinner-hour. 
Everything  was  in  the  German  style  ;  five  or  six  courses,  but  not  long 
continued.  The  gentlemen  rose  with  the  ladies.  We  had  Lohrmann, 
the  astronomer,  Carus,  the  King's  physician,  —  a  very  pleasant  man, 
whom  I  knew  before,  —  and  a  Swiss  baron.  The  conversation  was 
chiefly  in  French.  We  reached  home  about  half  past  four.  The 
truth  is,  the  Germans,  and  especially  the  Saxons,  know  nothing  about 
giving  dinners,  and  give  them  rarely.  Their  amusements  and  inter 
course  all  come  in  the  evening. 

Another  day  we  dined  with  Mr.  Forbes  very  pleasantly  ;  the  dinner 
between  five  and  six  o'clock,  quite  in  French  style,  but  nobody  at 
table  except  his  secretary,  Mr.  Barnard,  and  Lady  Rancliffe. 

Two  evenings  we  went  to  the  theatre  ;  once  to  an  opera,  Bellini's 
"  Romeo  and  Juliet,"  which  was  very  well  performed,  especially  the 
part  of  Romeo,  by  Mad.  Heinefetter  ;  .  .  .  .  and  once  to  see  Schiller's 

*  Mr.  Ticknor  says  elsewhere :  "  Count  Bose  has  been  in  the  diplomatic 
service  of  Saxony,  and  was  for  some  time  Grand  Marshal  of  the  Court,  hut  now 
lives  chiefly  on  a  large  estate  of  his  wife's,  in  Lithuania.  She  was  a  Countess 
Lowenstein,  and  at  St.  Petersburg,  in  1810-11,  ....  knew  Alexander  Everett 
and  Frank  Gray  very  well,  and  seemed  to  remember  them  very  distinctly.  She 
talks  French  and  English  very  well,  is  an  agreeable  person,  and  certainly  has  a 
good  deal  of  talent." 


460  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1835. 

"  William  Tell,"  which  I  was  very  glad  to  find  could  be  played  so 
well  here,  as  I  feel  sure  now  that  I  shall  see  what  I  did  not  see  at 
all  in  Germany  before, —  the  principal  dramas  of  Schiller  and  Goethe 
properly  represented.  The  theatre  in  both  its  parts  is  certainly  excel 
lent,  and  the  old  King  and  the  Court  are  almost  always  there. 

We  have,  of  course,  made  a  good  many  acquaintance  this  week, 

though  I  wish  to  be  slow  about  it One  person  I  was  quite 

glad  to  meet  at  M.  de  Zeschau's  the  other  evening  ;  I  mean  Sonntag, 
who  had  been  often  at  our  house  in  Boston.  He  is  the  Secretary 
of  the  French  Legation  here,  as  he  was  of  that  in  the  United  States. 

December  21.  —  We  went  to  the  picture-gallery  to-day  for  the  first 

time We  had  not  been  earlier  to  see  it  because  we  have  been 

much  occupied,  and  because,  as  it  is  not  regularly  open  in  the  winter, 
....  we  did  not  wish  to  visit  it  until  we  could  have  leave  to  visit 
it  freely.  This  I  obtained  about  a  week  ago  from  Baron  Lindenau. 
....  To-day  we  could  only  walk  through  it  and  get  the  most  gen 
eral  impression  of  its  contents.  It  is  certainly  a  magnificent  gallery, 
and  greatly  improved  since  I  saw  it  in  1816 

December  24.  —  Dresden  has  been  entirely  full  for  the  last  three 
days ;  its  streets  swarming  with  picturesque  crowds  from  the  country, 
and  the  fair  in  the  Alte  Markt  overflowing.  It  has  been  altogether 

a  beautiful  sight  to  see It  was  almost  confusing  to  walk 

about,  and  in  the  evening,  when  the  whole  was  lighted  up,  .... 
it  glittered  as  if  it  were  only  arranged  for  exhibition  and  stage 
effect 

In  the  evening  we  witnessed  some  of  the  results  of  this  very  pecul 
iar  national  feeling  and  custom ;  that,  I  mean,  of  the  children  giv 
ing  presents  to  the  parents  and  the  parents  to  the  children  on  Christ 
mas  eve.  We  were  invited  to  witness  it  at  Baron  Ungern  Sternberg's. 
At  first,  in  the  saloon,  we  saw  the  Baron  and  his  wife,  whom  I  had 
met  at  Tieck's,  people  of  a  good  deal  of  taste  and  cultivation,  and  we 
amused  ourselves  with  looking  over  some  of  the  drawings  and  curi 
osities  which  the  Baron's  intimate  friend,  the  Count  Stackelberg, 
brought  from  Greece,  a  remarkable  collection,  ....  constituting  the 
materials  for  the  beautiful  work  which  Stackelberg  is  now  publish 
ing.  As  we  were  in  the  midst  of  looking  them  over  a  little  bell 
rang,  and  we  went  into  the  room  where  the  presents  which  the 
children  had  secretly  prepared  for  the  elder  members  of  the  family 
were  placed  under  the  tree.  They  were  all  prepared  by  two  little 
girls  of  twelve  and  fourteen,  ....  and  though  there  was  nothing 
very  valuable  or  beautiful  in  what  was  given,  yet  it  was  all  received 


M.  44.]  PRESENTATION  TO  THE  KING.  461 

with  so  much  pleasure  by  the  parents  and  elder  brother,  that  the 
children  were  delighted,  and  kissed  us  all  round  very  heartily.  While 
this  was  going  on  a  bell  rang  in  another  part  of  the  house,  and  we 
were  led  through  a  passage-way  purposely  kept  dark,  where  two 
folding-doors  were  thrown  open  and  we  were  all  at  once  in  a  large 
and  handsome  saloon,  which  was  brilliantly  lighted  up,  and  where 
were  the  presents  which  the  parents  had  provided  for  the  chil 
dren 

December  26.  —  I  was  presented  to  the  King  to-day  ....  by  the 
English  Minister,  and  all  the  forms  usual  on  such  occasions  any 
where  were  fully  observed After  passing  through  two  or  three 

antechambers  we  came  to  one  quite  full  of  Saxon  nobles  and  officers 
in  every  possible  variety  of  uniform  and  costume,  who  were  to  be 
received  after  the  diplomatic  audience  should  be  over.  We  crowded 
our  way  through  them  with  some  difficulty,  and  entered  a  room 
where  were  gradually  collected  about  forty  or  fifty  persons.  .... 
The  Prussian  Minister,  Baron  Jordan,  went  in  first,  having  an  especial 
private  audience,  to  present  the  King  with  the  Order  of  the  Black 
Eagle,  as  a  compliment  on  his  birthday,  from  the  King  of  Prussia. 
After  he  came  out  the  rest  of  us  were  admitted.  It  was  a  good  room 
into  which  we  came,  with  a  canopy  for  the  throne,  but  no  throne  was 

there Those  who  came  in  formed  a  circle  opposite  the  throne, 

and  under  the  canopy  stood  the  King  ;  a  small,  ordinary-looking 
man,  much  broken  with  years,  in  a  general's  uniform  with  boots  and 
spurs,  a  large  diamond  ornament  on  his  breast,  and  the  Order  of  the 
Black  Eagle,  which  he  had  just  received,  rather  awkwardly  hung 
round  his  person.  He  bowed  to  us  kindly,  and  then  spoke  to  the 

minister  who  happened  to  be  on  his  right  hand Mr.  Forbes 

came  next,  and  having  spoken  to  the  King  presented  me.  The  King 
asked  me  how  long  I  meant  to  remain  in  Dresden,  said  he  hoped  I 
should  find  it  agreeable,  etc.,  and  then  passed  on  round  the  rest  of  the 
circle.* 

*  Mr.  Ticknor  gives  the  following  account  of  the  Saxon  royal  family  at  this 
period  :  "  The  royal  family  now  consists  of  King  Anthony,  who  is  eighty  years 
old  to-morrow,  his  brother  Maximilian,  who  is  seventy-six  years  old,  and  his 
niece  Augusta,  daughter  of  the  late  King,  who  is  fifty-three.  The  King  has 
been  twice  married,  but  both  his  wives  are  dead,  leaving  no  children,  and 
Augusta  was  never  married,  so  that  the  family  of  Maximilian  is  to  succeed  to 

the  throne In  1830  there  was  a  revolution  here  in  imitation  of  the  Three 

Days  at  Paris,  a  Constitution  was  obtained  with  representative  forms,  and, 
Maximilian  having  first  renounced  his  personal  right  to  the  crown,  his  eldest 
son  —  a  popular  favorite  and  very  respectable  man  —  was,  with  the  sincere  con- 


462  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1835. 

December  28.  —  This  evening  I  passed  at  Count  Stroganoff's.  He 
is  here  this  winter  from  reasons  connected  with  his  health,  and 
receives  company  every  evening  that  he  does  not  go  abroad,  and 
receives  it  in  a  very  agreeable  way.  He  is  the  same  person  who  has 
figured  so  much  for  nearly  thirty  years  in  Russian  diplomacy, 
his  career  in  which  he  closed  at  Constantinople,  where  he  much 
impaired  his  health,  and  resigned  to  live  quietly.  He  is  a  man  of  fine 
manners  and  rich  conversation.  I  met  him  at  Court  when  I  was 
presented,  and  talked  with  him  a  good  deal,  but  find  him  still  more 
agreeable  in  his  own  house.  The  Countess  has  winning  manners,  and 
the  house  seems  to  be  more  on  the  footing  of  a  Parisian  salon  than 
any  I  have  been  in  at  Dresden.  There  were  about  twenty  people 
there  to-night. 

December  29.  —  I  have  been  two  or  three  times  at  Tieck's  lately  ; 
one  evening  there  was  a  large  party  at  which  some  Eussian  nobles 
of  large  fortunes,  and  some  of  the  more  distinguished  of  the  Saxon 
nobility,  were  present.  Among  the  rest  was  Baron  Billow,  a  young 
man  of  a  little  over  thirty,  who  belongs  to  the  old  Prussian  family, 
but  who  is  settled  and  married  in  Dresden.  He  has  published  some 
translations  of  old  English  plays,  and  is  now  occupied  with  Spanish 
literature,  though  not  very  deeply.  We  had,  therefore,  a  good  deal 
to  say  to  each  other,  and  this  evening  he  came  and  made  me  a  visit 
of  four  hours,  which  I  cannot  say  seemed  too  long,  so  pleasant  and 
various  was  his  conversation.  He  is  a  great  admirer  and  follower 
of  Tieck,  so  that  I  did  not  quite  agree  to  all  his  theories  and  opinions ; 
but  he  is  a  very  interesting  person,  and  full  of  elegant  knowledge. 

January  1,  1836.  —  This  evening  there  was  the  first  regular  recep 
tion  at  Court.  Like  everything  else  here,  it  began  early,  and  Mrs.  T. 
having  put  on  her  train,  and  I  having  my  sword  by  my  side,  at  half 
past  five  we  were  at  the  grand  entrance  to  the  palace.  Our  first  visit 
was  to  the  personage  called  the  Grande- Maitresse,  that  is,  the  chief 

currence  of  his  father  and  of  the  reigning  sovereign,  made  Co-Regent."  Early 
in  this  movement  it  was  proposed  by  the  revolutionists  that  the  old  King 
should  be  deposed  and  Prince  Frederic  put  in  his  place  ;  but  on  hearing  of  the 
suggestion,  the  Prince  went  instantly,  in  the  evening,  to  the  crowded  market 
place,  and  by  the  light  of  a  few  torches  took  a  solemn  oath,  that  if  that  threat 
should  be  executed  he  would  leave  Saxony  and  never  return.  The  people, 
knowing  his  sincerity,  gave  up  the  plan  and  made  him  Regent.  "This  Prince, 
however,  —  Frederic, — though  twice  married,  has  no  children,  so  that  it  is 
probable  his  younger  brother  John  will  eventually  come  to  the  throne.  Fred 
eric  is  thirty-eight  years  old,  a  wise  and  valuable  man  ;  John  is  thirty-four,  a 
man  of  quiet,  studious  habits  and  a  good  deal  of  learning." 


&.  44.]  RECEPTION  AT  COURT.  463 

Lady  of  Honor  to  the  Co-Regentess.  We  found  her  living  in  a  fine 
apartment  up  two  pair  of  stairs,  and  her  room  was  quite  brilliant 
when  we  entered  it,  with  the  court  dresses  of  those  persons,  chiefly 
foreigners,  who  had  come  to  pay  the  customary  attention  to  her. 
The  British  Minister  presented  us  to  her,  ....  but  we  had  hardly 
spoken  to  her  and  two  or  three  other  persons  whom  we  knew,  before 
she  went  to  perform  her  own  duties  to  the  Princess  —  who  now  occu 
pies  the  place  of  Queen  —  and  left  us  to  follow  at  our  leisure.  We 
did  so  very  soon,  ....  and  were  somewhat  surprised  that  we  had 
another  pair  of  stairs  to  ascend,  which  brought  us,  in  fact,  to  the 
third  story,  where,  I  observe,  a  very  large  proportion  of  the  most 
considerable  people  here  live 

When  we  got  there  we  found  a  magnificent  suite  of  rooms,  which 
had  been  built  for  state  occasions  in  the  time  of  the  Polish  kings  ;  and, 
passing  to  one  extremity  of  it,  all  of  us,  both  ladies  and  gentlemen, 
to  the  number  of  thirty  or  forty,  who  had  not  yet  been  presented  to 
the  princesses  and  royal  family,  together  with  the  foreign  ministers 
who  were  to  present  us,  were  carried  into  a  large  room  with  a  dais 
in  it,  but  no  throne  or  seats,  the  whole  hung  with  velvet.  There  we 
were  arranged  in  a  semicircle,  the  ladies  on  one  side,  the  gentlemen 
on  the  other.  By  the  time  this  was  well  done  the  royal  family  ap 
peared,  the  King,  eighty  years  old,  and  his  brother,  Prince  Maxi 
milian,  seventy-six,  dressed  in  scarlet,  and  covered  —  especially  the 
King  —  with  diamonds,  of  which  this  family  has  an  extraordinary 
quantity  of  extraordinary  brilliancy,  one  in  the  King's  hat  being 
green  and  unique.  The  two  princes  —  the  Eegent  and  his  brother 
John  —  were  dressed  in  military  uniform,  and  the  four  princesses  — 
Augusta,  the  daughter  of  the  late  King,  Amelia,  the  daughter  of 
Maximilian,  the  wife  of  the  Regent,  and  the  wife  of  Prince  Max  — 
were  splendidly  dressed,  and  had  a  waste  of  diamonds,  especially  the 
Princess  Augusta. 

The  wife  of  Prince  Max  is  a  princess  of  Lucca,  and  is  thirty-two 

years  old When  she  married  him  she  was  twenty-two  and  he 

sixty-six,  and  she  is  said  to  give  as  a  reason  for  her  consent,  that  she 
had  rather  be  the  wife  of  a  kind,  respectable  man  three  times  as  old 
as  herself,  than  live  with  a  mother  who  beat  her.  The  royal  party 
was  certainly  very  splendid,  and  amused  us  as  a  show  while  they 
walked  round,  and  with  great  kindness  and  some  tact  spoke  to  each 
of  us.  When  this  was  over  —  which  lasted  perhaps  half  an  hour  — 
the  King  and  the  family  bowed  civilly  to  us  all  and  went  out,  the 
first  act  of  the  evening's  ceremonies  being  over. 


464  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1836. 

We  now  passed  through  a  suite  of  three  or  four  grand  rooms,  one 
of  which  was  filled  with  old  porcelain,  to  the  presence-chamber,  where 
we  found  about  three  hundred  persons  in  every  variety  of  showy 
dress  and  brilliant  uniform,  which  was  all  well  set  off  by  the  room 
itself,  well  lighted,  and  hung  with  crimson  velvet.  In  a  few  mo 
ments  the  King  and  Court  followed.  Two  officers  of  the  guard  pre 
ceded  them  and  placed  themselves  under  the  dais,  with  their  caps  on. 
Then  came  the  court-marshal  and  the  master  of  ceremonies,  one  of 
whom  knocked  slightly  on  the  floor,  ....  upon  which  the  company 
separated,  the  ladies  on  the  right  and  the  gentlemen  on  the  left,  .... 
the  King  and  Court  passed  to  the  place  of  the  throne,  where  a  red 
cloth  was  spread,  and  where,  having  stopped  a  few  moments,  they 
again  came  down  the  room,  and  mixed  with  the  crowd,  and  spoke  to 
a  good  many  persons.  The  main  ceremony  of  the  evening  now  en 
sued,  which  was  a  game  of  cards  called  Hof-Spiel,  —  Court- Play,  — 
because  only  the  Court  play,  and  everybody  else  looks  on.  For  this 
purpose  seven  tables  were  arranged,  at  which  the  chamberlains  waited 

in  great  state It  was  easy  to  move  about,  and  as  you  passed 

the  tables  of  the  princesses,  it  was  expected  you  should  bow  to  them, 
and  they  always  returned  the  salutation  in  a  very  marked  manner. 
Refreshments,  tea,  sherbets,  and  cakes  were  served  round,  and,  except 
that  seats  were  scarce,  it  was  now  merely  an  elegant  and  rather  agree 
able  party,  where  such  men  as  Baron  Lindenau,  Count  Stroganoff, 
M.  de  Bussierre,*  etc.,  were  to  be  found  to  talk  to. 

This  lasted  till  eight  o'clock,  when  the  playing  gradually  broke  up 
at  all  the  tables,  the  royal  party  again  mixed  with  the  company  a 
short  time,  and  then,  bowing  all  round,  went  away,  and  we  all  came 
home  as  early  as  they  did  in  Queen  Elizabeth's  time. 

I  did  not  talk  much  with  any  of  the  royal  family,  except  Prince 
John,  the  translator  and  commentator  of  Dante's  "Inferno,"  whom 
I  found  very  agreeable,  and  much  disposed  for  literary  conversa 
tion. 

Jamiary  5.  —  I  dined  with  the  King  at  a  regular  court  dinner  in 
full  dress.t  The  ceremonious  part  of  it  was  like  all  other  court  cere 
monies  ;  the  rest  was  very  well  arranged,  and  agreeable.  The  invita 
tion  ....  was  for  "  three  quarters  past  twelve  o'clock."  I  went,  of 
course,  punctually  enough  to  be  among  the  first,  though  I  found  there 

*  The  French  Minister. 

t  Note  by  Mr.  Ticknor :  "  This  was  the  only  dinner  the  King  gave  during 
Carnival  this  year.  Formerly  he  used  to  give  a  good  many,  but  now  he  is  so 
old  that  he  feels  himself  excused  from  it." 


M.  44.]  DINNEK  AT  COURT.  465 

already  Count  Stroganoff  and  General  Von  Leyser,  President  of  the 
Chamber  of  Deputies,  with  two  or  three  other  persons  whom  I  knew. 
We  were  received  by  the  court-marshal  and  the  master  of  ceremonies, 
and  the  company  amounted  to  about  thirty  persons.  When  it  was  all 
assembled,  two  officers  of  the  guards  entered  from  a  side  door,  and, 
crossing  the  room,  placed  themselves  by  the  door  of  the  dining-hall. 
The  proper  officers  of  ceremony  followed,  and  then  came  the  old  King, 
with  the  Princess  Amelia,  his  niece,  who  has  long  lived  with  him  as 
his  adopted  daughter,  who  was  accompanied  by  a  single  dame  d'hon- 
neur They  spoke  to  almost  all  of  us,  meaning  to  be  agree 
able,  and  partly  succeeding.  As  soon  as  this  was  over  the  doors 
of  the  dining-hall  were  thrown  open,  the  King  tottered  in  alone, 
the  Princess  and  her  lady  followed,  and  then  the  rest  of  us,  without 
standing  upon  the  order  of  our  going. 

At  table  Count  Stroganoff  was  placed  on  the  King's  right  and  a 
Polish  general  on  his  left,  in  the  middle  of  a  long  table,  and  opposite 
sat  the  Princess,  with  General  Von  Leyser  on  her  left,  and  then  my 
self,  as  arranged  by  the  court-marshal.  General  Von  Leyser  is  a  man 

of  talent,  and  very  agreeable,  so  that  I  had  a  pleasant  time 

There  were  about  as  many  servants  as  guests  ;  four  for  the  King,  in  the 

yellow  livery  of  his  running  footmen,  had  their  caps  on The 

table  was  loaded  with  a  very  rich  and  beautifully  wrought  profusion 
of  plate,  but  there  was  nothing  under  the  covers,  the  true  dishes  being 
all  brought  round.  The  King  eat  from  a  service  of  gold,  and  had  a 
little  gold  salt-cellar  before  him  that  looked  exactly  like  a  snuff-box. 
It  lasted  about  an  hour  and  a  half ;  then  the  King  rose  and  went  with 
the  Princess  into  the  next  room,  where  we  were  first  received.  There 
coffee  was  served,  ....  the  King  spoke  to  most  of  us  again,  .... 
bowed  to  us,  and  went  out.  The  Princess  stayed  a  few  moments 
longer  and  then  retired.  The  company  now  took  ceremonious  leave 
of  the  court-marshal,  as  if  he  had  been  our  host,  and  we  were  all  at 
home  before  three  o'clock The  party  chiefly  consisted  of  Rus 
sian,  Polish,  and  Saxon  noblemen,  with  one  or  two  French,  one  or 
two  Austrian,  and  one  Englishman 

In  the  evening  I  passed  an  hour  or  two  with  Falkenstein,  the  head 
of  the  library  establishment,  a  man  full  of  knowledge  and  pleas 
ant  qualities,  to  whom  I  am  under  many  obligations.  We  spent  the 
time  chiefly  in  looking  over  his  extraordinary  collection  of  auto 
graphs,  which  is  most  admirably  arranged,  and  amounts  now  to  about 
eleven  thousand,  exclusive  of  duplicates.  I  have  never  seen  anything 
like  it. 

20*  DD 


466  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1836. 

January  8.  —  I  passed  —  by  appointment  made  according  to  the 
court  ceremonies  —  an  hour  this  afternoon  with  Prince  John.  Noth 
ing  could  be  more  simple  and  unpretending  than  his  manners.  I 
wanted  to  see  him  on  account  of  his  knowledge  of  Dante,  of  whose 
"Inferno"  he  has  printed  a  translation  with  very  good  notes;  and 
during  the  greater  part  of  the  time  I  was  with  him  he  was  occupied 
in  showing  me  the  books  and  apparatus  he  had  collected  for  the  study 

of  the  great  Italian  master.  Some  of  them  were  quite  curious 

In  all  respects  I  found  him  well-informed,  in  some  learned,  and  he 
was  truly  agreeable,  because  it  was  plain  he  desired  to  be  so. 

His  establishment  is  very  elegant  and  luxurious,  and  his  study, 
where  he  received  me,  looked  truly  scholar-like  and  comfortable. 
Among  other  things  he  showed  me  a  beautiful  collection  of  drawings 
in  an  album,  relating  to  Dante,  which  had  been  from  time  to  time 
given  to  him  by  his  family,  all  original,  of  course,  and  two  or  three 
by  Retzsch,  of  the  greatest  vigor  and  beauty,  and  executed  in  pencil 
with  the  most  delicate  finish. 

January  10.  —  This  evening  happened  the  first  grand  court  ball ; 
for  the  season  of  Carnival,  from  Christmas  to  Lent,  is  the  season  into 
which  all  the  amusements,  both  at  the  Court  and  in  private  houses, 
are  crowded,*.  .  .  .  and  we  are  to  have  a  ball  every  fortnight  until 
the  period  of  gayety  is  over.  Like  everything  else  here,  it  began 
early.  "We  were  invited  for  six  o'clock,  and,  arriving  a  few  minutes 
afterwards,  found  ourselves  among  the  last.  Six  fine  large  halls  were 
open,  ....  all  well  lighted  and  most  agreeably  heated,  the  last  but 
one  being  arranged  for  dancing  ;  and  the  last,  which  was  the  presence- 
chamber,  was  prepared  for  cards.  Round  three  sides  of  the  dancing- 
hall  were  barriers,  covered  with  tapestry,  behind  which  stood,  I 
should  think,  five  hundred  of  the  common  people,  who  seemed  to 
enjoy  the  show  very  much,  and  were  perfectly  quiet  the  whole  even 
ing.  In  the  centre  were  about  four  hundred  invited  guests,  compre 
hending  the  nobility  of  Saxony  and  the  principal  foreigners  now  in 
Dresden,  all  in  full  dress.  It  was  a  fine  show  in  a  fine  hall. 

Soon  after  we  arrived  the  King  and  Court  entered,  preceded  by  the 

*  Frequent  extracts  are  given  from  the  journal  describing  these  court  recep 
tions  and  fetes,  because  even  then  they  had  a  flavor  of  bygone  times  about 
them,  and  because  they  were  the  only  large  and  elegant  entertainments  given 
during  the  winter.  Kindliness  and  intellectual  refinement  mingled  so  largely 
with  the  regal  splendor  of  this  Court,  that  it  really  formed  the  heart  of  society 
for  the  Saxon  nobility,  as  well  as  for  the  very  few  foreigners  who  then  visited 
Dresden.  No  other  American  family  was  there  that  year,  and  not  many 
English. 


JE.  44.]  COURT  BALL.  467 

officers  of  the  guard  and  the  officers  of  ceremony,  and  went  through 
the  crowd  in  different  directions,  speaking  to  as  many  as  they  could. 
....  When  this  was  over  the  King  took  the  Princess  Marie  *  and 
walked  a  polonaise  round  the  hall,  followed  by  a  part  of  the  com 
pany,  but  he  tottered  about  very  sadly.  The  party  now  divided  ;  a 
few  went  to  the  presence-chamber,  and  sat  down  at  a  dozen  tables 
to  cards ;  the  rest  remained  in  the  ballroom,  and  dancing  began  in 

good  earnest The  Eegent  danced  constantly,  and  repeatedly 

gave  great  pleasure  by  taking  for  partners  the  young  Countess  Bau- 
dissin  and  little  Countess  Bose,  who  were  presented  at  Court  for 
the  first  time,  and  thus  had  a  double  zest  added  to  their  first  ball. 
The  old  King,  too,  who  has  been  a  great  dancer  in  his  day,  deter 
mined  to  have  it  said  that  he  had  danced  after  he  was  eighty  years 
old,  and  actually  went  through  a  quadrille  with  Mile.  Watzdorff. 
By  the  great  skill  of  his  partner  he  was  prevented  from  falling,  but 
it  was  painful  to  see  him 

The  King  disappeared  soon  after  he  had  finished  his  dance,  and  at 
a  little  before  ten  o'clock  the  Regent  led  the  way  to  supper,  which 
was  beautifully  arranged  in  two  large  halls,  on  tables  for  ten  persons 
each.  Each  of  the  princes  and  princesses  had  a  table,  to  which,  very 
early  in  the  evening,  such  persons  as  they  selected  were  invited.  Im 
mediately  after  our  arrival,  one  of  the  officers  came  to  us  with  a 
written  list  and  invited  us  to  the  table  of  Prince  John  ;  and  when  we 
reached  the  table  we  found  the  list  on  it,  and  that  our  company  con 
sisted  of  the  wife  of  the  Minister  of  War,  Countess  Herzberg,  Mrs. 
Pole  [an  English  lady],  Count  Baudissin,  and  enough  more  to  make 
up  the  ten. 

It  was  a  hot-  supper,  consisting  of  many  courses  of  very  nice  dishes, 
excellent  wines,  ices,  etc.,  ....  and  we  remained  at  table  about  an 
hour  and  a  half.  The  quantity  of  silver  must  have  been  immense, 
for  the  plates  were  all  of  silver  for  the  whole  four  hundred  and  fifty 
persons,  and  were  changed  at  least  four  times  for  each,  and  sometimes 
six  or  seven  times.  No  distinction  was  made  in  the  service  and 
arrangements  of  the  tables  of  the  princes  and  those  of  the  rest  of  the 
company,  except  that  the  royal  family  chose  who  should  sup  with 

them.  The  rest  of  the  company  chose  their  own  places At  our 

table  we  had  a  very  good  time. 

Prince  John  was  very  agreeable,  and  spoke  pretty  good  English,  as 
well  as  excellent  French.  Count  Baudissin  —  wbo  is  about  to  pub 
lish  some  translations  from  Ben  Jonson,  Massinger,  Fletcher,  etc.  — 

*  Wife  of  the  Regent. 


468  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1836. 

talked  very  well  upon  our  early  literature.  The  Prince  talked  a  little 
about  Dante,  but  of  course  made  himself  as  agreeable  as  he  could 
to  the  ladies.  On  the  whole  it  was  an  exquisitely  nice  supper,  and 
we  enjoyed  the  conversation  round  our  comfortable  little  table  very 
much. 

Soon  after  eleven  the  Regent  rose,  and  returned  to  the  ballroom. 
We  all  followed,  and  found  that  it  had  been  aired,  and  that  a  new  set, 
of  about  four  hundred  of  the  people,  had  been  let  in  behind  the  bar 
riers  to  see  the  show. 

When  one  waltz  was  over  we  left  it  all,  and  reached  home  just 
before  midnight,  having  been  there,  of  course,  nearly  six  hours,  and 
yet  not  being  very  near  the  end  of  the  whole  matter.  It  was  an  ele 
gant  entertainment  in  all  its  parts,  .....  and  the  company  had  an 
air  of  quiet  gentility  and  good  taste  about  it  which,  I  am  sure,  is 
rarely  to  be  found  anywhere. 

January  11. — Count  Baudissin  came  this  morning  and  brought  with 
him  a  volume  of  Shirley's  Plays,  where  there  were  one  or  two  pas 
sages  he  found  it  difficult  to  interpret.  I  found  it  hardly  less  so,  but 
that  did  not  prevent  vis  from  having  a  very  agreeable  literary  conver 
sation  of  an  hour  or  two.  He  is  the  person,  I  find,  who  has  com 
pleted,  with  Tieck,  the  translation  of  Shakespeare  which  was  begun 
by  Schlegel,  and  his  portion  is  thought  equally  good  with  that  of  his 
predecessor. 

The  evening  I  divided  between  literary  talk  at  Tieck's,  which  was 
more  than  commonly  interesting,  and  a  lounge  at  Count  Stroganoff's  ; 
the  whole,  however,  finished  before  half  past  ten. 

January  14. — We  passed  an  hour  or  two  this  morning  in  the 
gallery  of  pictures,  looking  almost  the  whole  time  at  the  works  of 

Guercino  and  Guido It  was  a  most  agreeable  visit,  for  the 

weather  for  the  last  two  or  three  days  has  been  very  mild,  and 
the  halls  of  the  gallery,  therefore,  less  painfully  cold.  I  long  for  the 
spring  and  its  warmth,  that  we  may  go  every  day  to  enjoy  these 
admirable  collections. 

I  dined  with  Prince  John.  The  invitation  was  a  verbal  one, 
brought  by  one  of  the  officers  of  his  household  this  morning,  and 
I  went  punctually  at  three  o'clock.  There  was  as  little  ceremony 
as  possible.  I  found  his  grand-maltre  in  waiting,  with  one  other  per 
son  whom  I  did  not  know,  but  who  was  invited  like  myself,  and  was 
the  only  other  guest.  The  Prince  was  informed  we  were  there,  and 
appeared,  went  into  dinner  alone,  and  asked  for  me,  formally,  to  sit 
on  his  right  hand He  had  a  gold  salt-cellar  like  a  snuff-box, 


M.  44.]  PRINCESS  AMELIA'S  PLAY.  469 

just  as  the  King  had.*  He  went  out  first  from  dinner  to  the  saloon, 
and,  after  talking  Avith  us  a  little  more  there,  bowed  to  us  all  and  left 
us.  So  much  for  the  ceremony  of  the  matter. 

The  rest  was  as  simple  and  agreeable  as  possible.  We  dined  at  a 
little  round  table,  on  which  was  placed  only  a  very  handsome  dessert 

of  hot-house  fruits,  etc The  conversation  was  in  French,  and 

purely  literary  and  scholar-like,  of  course  a  good  deal  about  Dante  ; 
but  the  other  invited  guest  did  not  say  a  word,  why,  I  know  not. 
The  Prince  values  himself  a  good  deal  upon  his  literary  knowledge, 
and  he  has  a  right  to,  for  he  studies  very  hard.  His  manner  is 
simple  and  frank,  sometimes  a  little  modest  and  distrustful,  but  as 
a  pleasant  talker  at  dinner  or  supper  it  is  not  easy  to  find  those  who 
will  go  before  him.  The  dinner  lasted  about  an  hour  and  a  half, 
....  and,  when  I  came  away,  he  invited  me  to  come  and  see  him 
any  day  in  the  forenoon,  without  the  ceremony  of  announcing  myself 
through  his  grand-maitre. 

In  the  evening  we  all  went  to  see  Goethe's  "  Egmont,"  not  a  very- 
effective  play  on  the  stage,  but  extremely  well  performed  to-night. 
Demoiselle  Bauer  is  an  extraordinary  actress  ;  indeed,  she  has  the 

reputation  of  being  the  best  in  Germany But  all  the  popular 

scenes  were  as  well  done  as  possible ^ 

January  16. —  I  went  to  the  theatre  to-night  to  hear  the  com 
edy  of  "  The  Uncle,"  —  Der  Oheim,  —  a  regular  piece  in  five  acts, 
by  the  Princess  Amelia,  the  sister  of  Prince  John.  It  is  a  good 
comedy,  and  amused  me  very  much.  She  wrote  it  quite  secretly, 
having  no  confidant  in  the  matter  but  one  of  her  ladies  of  honor, 
and  sent  it  anonymously  to  the  theatre  here,  where,  without  much 
reflection  or  examination,  it  was  rejected.  Tieck  was  the  respon 
sible  person  in  this  case,  as  he  is  in  all  similar  ones,  and  suf 
fered  accordingly  for  his  mistake.  But  one  of  his  friends  —  Count 
Baudissin  —  told  me  that  there  was  something  malicious  in  the 
mode  in  which  this  piece  was  sent  to  Tieck  ;  that  it  was  thrust  in 
with  a  large  number  of  other  dramas  that  were  poor,  in  order  to 
make  him  read  it  carelessly  or  neglect  it  altogether,  and  that,  in 
fact,  he  does  not  remember  having  seen  the  piece  at  all.  On  the 

*  Note  by  Mr.  Ticknor :  "This  queer  little  box,  I  understand,  is  called 
the  Cadenaa,  the  'Padlock,'  because  it  is  locked.  It  was  originally  used  in 
the  days  when  poisons  were  feared,  and  is  now  used  merely  as  a  distinction  of 
ceremony  and  etiquette,  being  always  granted,  at  royal  tables  in  Germany,  to 
the  descendants  of  those  who  were  sovereigns  at  the  time  the  great  consolidation 
took  place  under  Charles  Fifth." 


470  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICENOR.  [1836. 

other  hand,  it  is  said  Der  Oheim  was  sent  with  several  other  dramas, 
that  its  authorship  might  be  entirely  concealed,  and  that  the  judg 
ment  might  be  entirely  fair. 

The  Princess  then  sent  it  to  Berlin,  where  it  was  acted  and  had 
a  great  success,  the  incognito  being  strictly  preserved.  From  Berlin 
it  passed  to  other  theatres  with  great  applause,  and  then,  when  ac 
knowledged,  it  was  acted  here  ;  but  the  embarrassments  and  expla 
nations,  and  apologies  were  necessarily  manifold  and  mortifying.  It 
is  now  one  of  the  regular  acting  plays  throughout  Germany,  and  no 
doubt  deserves  to  be  so.  .... 

January  18. —  A  grand  dinner  at  the  French  Minister's;  more 
good  taste,  and  quite  as  much  elegance  as  at  the  Russian's  ;  au  reste, 

to  a  considerable  degree  the  same  company I  sat  next  to 

Count  Circourt,*  a  Frenchman,  whom  I  have  met  here  occasion 
ally,  with  a  very  intellectual  Russian  wife,  who,  like  himself,  is  pretty 
deep  in  Dante.  The  Count  is  a  Carlist,  and  was  private  secretary 

—  though  yet  a  young  man  —  under  the  Ministry  of  Prince  Polignac, 
and,  to  the  honor  of  his  personal  consistency,  refuses  now  to  wear  the 
tricolored  cockade.     The  consequence  is,  that  diplomatic  etiquette  will 
not  permit  the  minister  to  present  him  at  Court,  though  he  receives 
him  most  kindly  in  his  own  house,  and  even  presents  Mad.  de  Cir 
court,  who  danced  the  other  night  with  Prince  John.     So  much  for 
forms  ! 

I  talked  with  Count  Circourt  to-day  upon  two  subjects,  which  he 
understood  better  than  any  Frenchman  with  whom  I  ever  conversed, 

—  Dante,  and  the  statistics  of  the  United  States.     On  the  last  he  was 
uncommonly  accurate. 

Another  subject  which  was  much  talked  about  by  all  at  table  was 
the  great  fire  at  New  York,  the  news  of  which  came  to-day  ;  the  fire 

*  This  was  the  beginning  of  an  acquaintance  which  ripened  into  intimacy 
and  produced  frequent  correspondence.  Count  Circourt  is  well  known  in  all 
the  intellectual  circles  of  Europe  as  possessing  prodigious  stores  of  informa 
tion  and  a  marvellous  memory.  His  powers  of  criticism,  his  habits  of  re 
search,  his  sagacious  observation  of  the  political  movements  of  the  world,  and 
his  high  tone  of  thought  give  great  authority  to  his  opinions,  though  they  reach 
the  public  only  through  papers  on  a  wonderful  variety  of  subjects,  which  he 
gives  to  the  periodicals.  Lamartine's  brilliant  tribute  to  him  is  quoted  in  the 
"  Life  of  Prescott."  Mr.  Ticknor  highly  valued  his  correspondence  with  Count 
Circourt,  which  continued  with  undiminished  interest  to  the  last.  Madame  de 
Circourt  was  a  most  distinguished  person,  of  rare  talents  and  brilliant  acquire 
ments  ;  and  was  called  by  M.  de  Bonstetten  a  second  Madame  de  Stae'l,  he 
having  been  a  contemporary  and  admirer  of  the  first. 


M.  44]  BALL  AT  PRINCE  MAXIMILIAN'S.  471 

of  December  15  -  16.  The  Minister  of  Finance  told  me  he  had  re 
ceived  letters  from  Leipzic  this  morning,  full  of  anxiety  about  the 

debts  due  the  merchants  there  from  merchants  in  New  York 

In  the  evening  there  was  a  beautiful  ball  at  Prince  Maximilian's, 
quite  like  the  ball  at  Court  a  week  ago,  — arrangements,  supper,  and 
all,  —  except  that,  the  apartments  being  less  spacious,  there  were 

fewer  persons  invited I  supped  again  at  Prince  John's  table, 

with  the  wife  of  the  Minister  at  War,  the  Baroness  Diederichstein,  Mrs. 
Pole,  etc.,  and  found  it  very  agreeable.  The  whole  evening,  indeed, 
was  very  pleasant  ;  for  I  now  know  so  many  people,  and  there  is  so 
much  of  intellectual  resources  in  so  many  of  them,  that  I  never  feel 
myself  at  a  loss  for  pleasant  or  sensible  conversation.  The  supper, 
I  observed  to-night  by  the  list  that  lay  near  me,  consisted  of  ten. 
courses,  and  everything  about  the  entertainment,  while  it  was  as  com 
plete  as  this,  was  entirely  unconstrained  and  most  quietly  genteel. 


472  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1836. 


CHAPTEE   XXIV. 

Dresden.  —  Prince  John.  —  Count  Circourt.  —  Von  Baumer.  —  Eetzsch. 

JOURNAL. 

January  20.  —  I  passed  an  hour  this  forenoon  very  profitably  with 
Prince  John,  in  looking  over  the  apparatus  criticus  he  has  used  in  his 
study  of  Dante.  It  was  less  complete  than  I  expected  to  find  it,  but 
more  curious.  I  made  a  good  many  memoranda,  and  shall  turn  the 
visit  to  good  account.  He  was,  I  thought,  free  in  showing  me  every 
thing,  conscientious  in  confessing  to  some  little  oversights  and  igno 
rances,  and  glad  to  get  any  hints  that  will  be  useful  to  him  hereafter  ; 
but,  on  the  whole,  it  is  quite  plain  his  study  of  Dante  has  been  most 
thorough,  and  that  his  knowledge  and  feeling  of  the  power  and 
beauty  of  the  Inferno  and  Purgatorio  are  really  extraordinary.  With 
the  Paradiso  he  has  not  yet  made  a  beginning  ;  I  mean,  with  its  trans 
lation. 

Early  in  the  afternoon  I  made  a  similar  visit  to  Tieck,  and  looked 
over  his  collection  of  books  and  manuscripts  in  old  English  litera 
ture,  and  especially  the  old  English  drama.  Few  Englishmen  have 
so  fine  a  library  in  this  department  as  he  has  ;  fewer  still  have  a 
knowledge  in  it  at  all  to  be  compared  to  his.  Many  of  his  notions  are 
very  bold  ;  as,  for  instance,  that  the  "  Fair  Emm  "  *  is  by  Shakespeare. 
He  told  me  to-day  that  he  thinks  Milton  superintended  the  edition 
of  Shakespeare  to  which  his  sonnet  is  prefixed,  because  the  changes 
and  emendations  made  in  it,  upon  the  first  folio,  are  poetical  and 
plainly  made  by  a  poet.  It  would  be  a  beautiful  circumstance  if  it 
could  be  proved  true. 

When  Tieck  was  in  England,  in  1817,  he  bought  a  great  many 
curious  books,  and  even  had  eight  or  ten  manuscript  plays  copied 
in  the  British  Museum,  so  far  and  so  thoroughly  has  he  pushed  his 
inquiries  on  this  interesting  and  delightful  subject.  I  talk  with  him 

*  A  Pleasant  Comedie  of  Faire  Em,  the  Miller's  Daughter  of  Manchester, 
with  the  Love  of  William  the  Conqueror.  Acted  by  the  Lord  Strange  his 
Servants.  4to.  1631. 


M.  44.]  TIECK'S  BEADING  OF  SHAKESPEARE.  473 

about  it,  more  or  less,  almost  always  when  I  go  to  see  him,  and  he 
never  fails  to  be  agreeable  and  instructive.  This  afternoon  he  was 
particularly  so. 

January  21.  —  In  the  evening  I  went  to  Tieck's  by  appointment, 
and  heard  him  read  the  whole  of  the  first  part  of  "  Henry  IV.,"  in 
Schlegel's  admirable  translation.  He  has  universally  the  reputation 
of  being  the  best  reader  in  Germany,  and  certainly  I  am  not  at  all 
disposed  to  gainsay  his  fame.  His  reading  was  admirable  in  all 
respects  ;  sometimes  very  curious  and  striking  to  me,  because  his 
tones  and  manner,  now  and  then,  gave  a  small  shade  of  difference  to 
the  interpretation  of  a  passage  from  what  I  had  been  accustomed  to 
give  it,  or  hear  given  to  it  on  the  stage.  His  conception  of  Falstaff  's 
character  was  more  like  Cooke's,  and  less  like  Bartley's,  than  any 
I  recollect ;  that  is,  more  intellectual,  and  less  jovial,  less  vulgar ; 
and  the  conception  of  the  King's  character  was  more  violent  and 
angry  than  I  have  been  used  to.  Very  likely  he  was  right  in  both 
cases  ;  certainly  he  was  quite  successful  in  the  effect  he  produced.* 

This  reading  is  an  exercise  of  which  he  is  very  fond,  and  in  which 
he  often  indulges  his  friends,  and  the  society  that  assembles  at  his 
house  every  evening  ;  but  for  the  last  two  months  he  has  had  a 
cough  and  abstained  entirely,  so  that  I  have  never  heard  him  before 
to-night.  He  never  goes  out  to  walk  or  take  exercise,  and  his  physi 
cian —  Cams — says  these  readings  are  physically  useful  to  him  as 
substitutes.  He  gave  me  my  choice  of  what  he  should  read,  after  I 
arrived,  so  that  there  was  no  possibility  of  preparation  ;  and  he  read 
the  whole  through  at  once,  without  the  least  pause,  without  speak 
ing  or  being  spoken  to.  It  occupied  a  little  more  than  two  hours  and 

a  half,  and  did  not  fatigue  him  in  the  least,  so  fine  is  his  organ 

I  hope  I  shall  hear  him  often. 

January  22.  —  There  was  a  small  party  at  Count  Baudissin's  t  this 
evening,  not  above  thirty  or  forty  persons,  and  generally  among  the 

*  Mr.  Ticknor's  habit  of  reading  Shakespeare's  Plays,  in  a  similar  way,  to 
parties  of  friends  at  home,  heightened  his  interest  in  these  interpretations. 
His  own  reading  was  much  admired. 

t  A  few  days  earlier,  Mr.  Ticknor  wrote  :  "We  went  to  Count  Baudissin's 
and  found  a  beautiful  family  group  sitting  round  the  table  in  the  early  evening, 
for  it  is  the  fashion  here  to  make  calls,  at  this  season  of  the  year,  after  candle 
light.  The  family  consists  of  the  Count  and  his  wife,  and  their  two  nieces,  one 
married  to  a  French  marquis,  and  the  other  just  come  out,  both  very  beautiful. 
....  The  Count  is  a  rich  Holstein  nobleman,  who  has  no  children,  and  lives  in 
Dresden  because  he  is  very  fond  of  letters,  and  likes  the  literary  society  he  finds 
here." 


474  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1836. 

most  intellectual  and  distinguished  in  Dresden,  collected  to  hear  a 
famous  performer  on  the  piano-forte,  —  Miss  Clara  Wieck,*  —  only 
seventeen  or  eighteen  years  old.  She  played  with  more  expression 
than  I  have  been,  accustomed  to  hear  from  persons  who  play  so  sci 
entifically,  and  produced  certainly  a  great  effect  upon  the  audience. 
Once,  when  she  was  accompanied  on  the  violin  by  Schubardt,t  in  a 
remarkable  piece  which  they  had  never  played  together,  and  which 
she  did  not  know  he  would  ask  her  to  play,  the  astonishment  of 
those  who  had  the  best  right  to  judge  of  her  merit  seemed  to  reach 
its  utmost  limit.  It  was  altogether  beyond  my  comprehension. 
Indeed,  the  whole  affair  was  above  me,  and,  as  very  little  conversa 
tion  could  be  enjoyed,  I  did  not  stay  it  out. 

January  28.  —  Last  evening  M.  de  Billow  spent  a  long  and  quiet 
evening  with  us,  which  was  filled  with  very  agreeable  conversation, 
for  which  he  has  large  resources.  Among  other  things  I  heard  from 
him,  to  my  great  surprise,  that  Tiedge,  the  author  of  "  Urania/'  is 
still  alive  ;  and,  what  is  more,  living  over  in  the  Neu-Stadt,  eighty- 
four  years  old,  but  still  lively  and  enjoying  society,  though  his  infir 
mities  prevent  him  from  going  abroad. 

This  morning  I  went  to  visit  him.  He  lives  in  the  house  where 
his  friends  the  Reckes  lived ;  among  the  rest,  the  famous  Frau  von 
der  Recke,  who  exercised  not  a  little  political  influence  in  her  time, 
and  was  connected  with  a  large  number  of  its  most  distinguished  men, 
both  statesmen  and  men  of  letters.  When  she  died,  she  ordered  the 
house  to  remain  for  the  use  of  Tiedge,  and  the  income  of  her  moderate 

fortune  to  be  paid  over  for  his  benefit In  the  midst  of  these 

comforts,  then,  we  found  him,  and  quite  able,  from  the  freshness  of 
his  faculties,  to  enjoy  them  all.  His  hair  is  white  and  very  neatly 
combed  back  ;  his  dress  more  cared  for  than  is  common  in  old  men 
in  Germany  ;  his  manners  kind,  and  even  courteous  ;  and  his  conver 
sation  and  sympathy  quite  ready.  He  prefers  to  talk  of  old  times, 

and  lives  in  the  midst  of  the  portraits  of  generations  gone  by 

Altogether  my  visit  was  quite  interesting  and  amusing,  and  I  shall 
be  glad  to  go  and  see  him  occasionally,  as  the  last  authentic  repre 
sentative  of  an  age  long  gone  by, 

From  Tiedge's  I  went  to  see  Retzsch,  the  author  of  the  famous 

designs  for  Faust,  Schiller,  and  Shakespeare He  does  not  live 

in  Dresden,  but  in  a  little  vineyard  a  few  miles  off,  coming  to  the 

*  Since  Madame  Clara  Schumann. 

t  Probably  F.  Schubert,  for  many  years  first  violinist  of  the  Royal  Chapel  in 
Dresden. 


M.  44.]  READING  OF  DANTE. 


city  only  once  a  week I  was  surprised  to  find  him  with  a 

short,  stout  person,  and  a  decidedly  easy  look  ;  so  that  if  it  were  not 
for  his  large,  deep  gray  eyes,  I  should  hardly  have  been  able  to  mark 
in  him  any  symptom  of  his  peculiar  talent.  He  showed  me  some  of 
his  works  ;  the  rest  I  shall  go  to  see  another  time 

January  31. —  This  evening  Prince  John  invited  four  of  us  — 
Professor  Forster,  the  translator  of  Petrarca,  Dr.  Carus,  Count  Bau- 
dissin,  and  myself  —  to  hear  Tieck  read  a  part  of  the  unpublished 

translation  of  the  Purgatorio.*  I  went  punctually  at  six 

After  coffee  and  a  little  conversation,  we  all  sat  down  at  a  table, 
and  Tieck  read,  most  admirably,  five  cantos,  beginning  with  the 
eighteenth.  The  rest  of  us  looked  over  the  original  text,  and  at  the 
end  of  each  canto  observations  were  made  on  the  translation.  There 
was  not,  however,  one  word  of  compliment  offered,  or  the  smallest 
flattery  insinuated.  On  the  contrary,  errors  were  pointed  out  fairly 
and  honestly ;  and  once  or  twice,  where  there  was  a  difference  of 
opinion  between  the  Prince  and  Carus,  Carus  adhered,  even  with 
pertinacity,  to  his  own,  which,  in  one  case,  I  thought  was  wrong. 
The  translation,  however,  was  as  close  as  anything  of  the  sort  well 
can  be  ;  and  in  general,  I  have  no  doubt,  most  faithfully  accu- 
rate.t  After  the  reading  was  over,  and  refreshments  had  been  handed 
round,  the  conversation  was  very  gay,  and  fell  at  last  into  downright 
story- telling  and  comme'rage.  About  nine  o'clock,  however,  some 
message  was  brought  to  the  Prince,  ....  and  he  bowed  to  us  and 
left  us. 

February  1.  —  To-day  I  dined  with  the  venerable  Tiedge.  He  had 
that  nice  and  exact  look  which  is  always  so  agreeable  in  old  men, 
was  alert  in  his  mind  and  interested  in  what  is  going  forward,  and 
talked  well  and  pleasantly  with  everybody.  Falkenstein,  Billow,  and 
Reichenbach,  the  distinguished  botanist, 'were  at  table,  and  the  con 
versation  was  very  animated.  We  were  there  three  hours,  the  longest 
German  dinner  I  have  been  at. 

February  2.  —  I  dined  very  agreeably  to-day  at  Count  Baxidissin's, 
with  Tieck  and  half  a  dozen  other  pleasant  persons.  Tieck  was  quite 

*  By  Prince  John. 

t  Of  Mr.  Ticknor's  knowledge  of  Dante,  Count  Circourt  wrote  thus  to  Mr. 
Prescott  in  January,  1841 :  "  The  Commentary  which  Mr.  Ticknor  has  be 
gun  "  —  his  notes  made  in  1832  (see  p.  394),  but  never  published,  which  he  car 
ried  with  him  —  "is  one  of  the  highest  interest.  Few  persons  in  the  world  are 
so  intimately  acquainted  with  the  old  bard ;  and  nowhere,  perhaps,  such  a 
combination  of  profound  learning,  acute  criticism,  and  serene  elevation  of  mind 
can  be  found  as  in  this  highly  gifted  and  excellent  man." 


476  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1836. 

powerful,  and  talked  well  about  the  present  state  of  the  German 
theatre.  In  consequence  of  some  suggestion  about  America  we  got 
upon  the  sea-serpent,  and  I  was,  for  a  few  moments,  flooded  with 
questions  ;  but  they  were  very  willing  to  believe,  when  the  state  of 
the  case  was  fairly  explained,  especially  those  who  had  any  knowl 
edge  of  natural  history. 

February  3. —We  had  a  very  agreeable  visit  to-day  from  Baron 
Lindenau  and  General  Leyser,  the  President  of  the  Chamber  of 
Deputies,  who  talked  English  a  part  of  the  time  with  a  success  that 

quite  surprised  me He  [Baron  Lindenau]  is,  however,  one  of 

those  uncommon  men  who  have  so  much  earnestness  as  well  as  power 
within  them,  that  their  ideas  are  forced  out  through  almost  any 
obstacles.  In  debate  in  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  he  is  by  far  the 
first,  as  I  hear  from  all  sides. 

We  passed  the  evening  at  a  small  and  very  sociable  supper-party 
at  Countess  Bose's,  —  Mr.  Krause  of  Weisstropp,  Count  Baudissin 
with  his  pretty  niece,  and  Mons.  and  Mad.  de  Liittichau.*  Mad.  de 
Luttichau  is  not  only  one  of  the  prettiest  ladies  in  Dresden,  but  she 
has  more  good  sense  and  is  more  spirituelle ;  besides  which  her  good 
and  pleasant  qualities  are  all  brought  out  by  natural  manners  and  a 
sort  of  abandon  which  is  very  winning.  She  speaks  French,  English, 
and  Italian  well,  paints  in  oils  beautifully,  plays  and  sings  well,  talks 
well  upon  books,  and  yet  lives  chiefly  at  home  in  retirement,  devoted 
to  her  children,  the  two  that  remain  ;  for  she  has  been  deeply  touched 
by  sorrow,  the  traces  of  which  are  still  plainly  perceptible 

February  4.  —  This  morning  we  spent  with  Retzsch.  He  had  prom 
ised  to  bring  in  his  wife's  album,  and  he  was  as  good  as  his  word. 
....  This  album  contains  the  most  beautiful,  graceful,  and  charac 
teristic  of  his  works  ;  and  when  it  is  considered  that  his  wife  is  a 
peasant  with  a  lively  and  strong  character,  —  as  I  am  told,  —  with 
great  sweetness  and  gentleness  but  little  cultivation,  it  shows  well 
for  his  own  good  qualities  that  he  is  so  deeply  attached  to  her,  and 
dedicates  and  devotes  to  her  the  whole  force  of  his  peculiar  talent. 

There  are  now  just  forty  sketches  in  the  book,  all  done  in  pencil, 
with  that  exquisite  finish  which  makes  one  of  them  so  much  more 
valuable  than  one  of  his  oil-paintings.  The  first  is  the  four  elements, 
Earth,  Water,  Air,  and  Fire,  bringing  to  his  wife  —  who  is  repre- 

*  M.  de  Luttichau  was  Court  Director  of  the  Theatre,  Tieck  being  its  literary 
supervisor,  while  the  practical  management  was  of  course  in  inferior  hands.  It 
is  by  such  arrangements  that  the  German  theatre  is  kept  at  such  a  high  stand 
ard  of  intellectual  and  artistic  merit. 


M.  44]  TIECK'S  READING.  477 

sented  as  an  innocent  infant  sleeping  —  the  most  beautiful  of  their 
appropriate  treasures  ;  intimating  by  it  that  he  would  himself  gladly 
give  to  her  beauty  and  purity  all  that  there  is  most  precious  and 
graceful  in  the  universe.  Others  have  also  a  direct  or  allegorical 
relation  to  her,  but  in  general  they  were  mere  offerings  of  his  fancy. 
....  The  whole  is  exquisite,  and  as  we  turned  it  over  seemed  the 
very  concentration,  or  perhaps  I  ought  to  say  the  fragrant  exhalation, 
of  what  is  most  peculiar,  delicate,  and  graceful  in  his  genius.* 

February  6.  —  This  evening  ....  I  heard  Tieck  read  "  Midsum 
mer  Night's  Dream."  ....  I  found  quite  a  party Several  of 

them  asked  me  to  select  something  from  Shakespeare,  as  it  is  known 
Tieck  prefers  to  read  from  him,  and  I  mentioned  "  Midsummer 
Night's  Dream,"  "because  it  contains  such  a  variety.  Luckily  the 

piece  is  a  favorite  with  him He  read  it  admirably.  Puck's 

frolicsome  mischief  and  the  lightness  of  the  dainty  fairies  were  done 

with  the  greatest  tact  and  delicacy When  he  came  to  the  play 

represented  before  Theseus  I  received  quite  a  new  idea,  that  some  of 
the  repetitions  and  groans,  especially  in  the  part  of  Pyramus,  are 
merely  the  expression  of  the  actor's  personal  embarrassment  and 
anguish,  and  not  what  was  set  down  for  him.  The  whole  was  a  great 
pleasure. 

As  soon  as  it  was  over,  and  I  had  made  my  acknowledgments  with 
the  rest  to  Tieck  for  the  great  treat  we  had  enjoyed,  I  hurried  off  to 
the  British  Minister's,  where  we  finished  the  evening  in  a  very  small 
party. 

February  7.  —  There  was  a  Court  ball  to-night I  had  a  great 

deal  of  talk  there  with  Prince  John,  and  one  or  two  other  persons, 
about  the  state  of  the  art  of  painting  in  Germany  at  this  moment. 
It  has,  in  the  course  of  the  last  twenty  or  thirty  years,  begun  anew 
upon  the  old  foundations,  as  Walter  Scott  began,  upon  the  founda 
tions  of  the  old  ballads,  traditions,  and  histories  of  the  country,  to 

renew  its  literature I  supped  this  evening  at  the  table  of  the 

Princess  Amelia The  Princess  seemed  to  know  a  good  deal 

about  Shakespeare,  and  I  was  glad  to  have  her  say,  very  decidedly, 
that  she  could  not  imagine  how  anybody  could  think  of  making  the 
character  of  Lady  Macbeth  interesting,  by  an  expression  of  more 
human  feeling  and  tenderness  in  the  mode  of  representation  ;  for  it 
is  quite  the  fashion  in  Germany  now,  to  consider  her  a  sort  of  abused 
person  who  is  not  half  so  bad  as  people  have  thought  her,  and  it  is 

*  Mr.  Ticknor  afterwards  obtained  from  Retzsch  a  repetition  of  one  of  these 
drawings. 


4:78  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1S36. 

even  now  said  that  Tieck  is  instructing  Mile.  Bauer  how  to  produce 
this  impression  upon  the  audience.* 

February  8.  —  I  dined  to-day  at  Mr.  Forbes's,  with  only  Jordan, 
the  Prussian  Minister,  and  Baron  von  Herder.  The  latter  is  the  son 
of  the  famous  Herder,  and  head  of  the  great  Saxon  mining  estab 
lishment  and  school  at  Freyberg.  His  proper  title  is  Berghaupt- 
mann,  —  "  Captain  of  the  Mountains,"  —  a  picturesque  title,  which 
has  come  down  from  the  Middle  Ages  ;  and  his  dress  is  no  less  pictur 
esque.  I  saw  him  in  costume  at  the  Court  ball  yesterday. 

He  has  lately,  with  the  consent  of  his  government,  and  at  the 
request  of  Prince  Milosch  of  Servia,  been  there  to  examine  a  tract  of 
country  believed  previously  to  be  rich  in  mineral  wealth,  some  por 
tions  of  which  are  supposed  to  have  been  mined  by  the  Romans.  Mr. 
Von  Jordan  and  myself  were  invited  to-day  to  hear  him  give  some 
account  of  his  journey  and  adventures.  The  whole  was  very  curious. 
Prince  Milosch  is  an  intelligent  person,  much  in  advance  of  the  con 
dition  of  the  country  over  which  he  presides.  His  private  possessions 
are  immense  ;  he  himself  does  not  know  how  large,  either  in  territory 
or  in  the  number  of  serfs  attached  to  it.  One  part  of  his  income  con 
sists  in  swine,  and  of  these  he  sends  annually  between  one  and  two 
millions  to  the  neighboring  countries  for  sale.  But  still,  notwith 
standing  his  wealth  and  his  intelligence,  his  castle  and  domestic 
establishment  were  on  the  footing  of  those  of  one  of  the  barons  on 
the  Rhine  in  the  Middle  Ages.  The  Princess  spins  and  sews  with 
her  maids ;  the  cookery  does  not  savor  of  French  skill,  though  it  is 
healthy  ;  and  their  hospitality  is  abundant  if  not  luxurious. 

Baron  von  Herder  was  abroad  on  the  mountains  and  in  the  min 
eral  districts,  which  he  did  not  find  very  rich,  sixty-three  days.  The 
country  is  everywhere  perfectly  safe  for  travellers,  but  he  had  a  guard 
of  honor  of  thirty  persons  sent  with  him,  besides  all  that  was  neces 
sary  for  his  civil  purposes  and  his  cuisine.  He  showed  us  a  musical 
instrument  on  which  the  ladies  of  Servia  play,  very  little  more  de 
serving  the  name  than  an  African  banjo,  which  it  much  resembled  ; 
and  several  pieces  of  the  handiwork  of  the  Princess  Milosch  and  her 
maids,  which  were  given  him  as  parting  presents.  They  consisted  of 
handkerchiefs,  gloves,  turbans,  embroidery,  etc.,  as  simple  and  un 
sophisticated  as  the  work  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

*  When  Macbeth  was  brought  out  Mr.  Ticknor  wrote :  "  The  story  that 
Lady  Macbeth  was  to  be  produced  as  quite  an  amiable  person  proved  untrue. 
She  was  represented,  indeed,  as  more  affectionate  to  her  husband,  and  less  im 
perious  to  him,  than  I  have  been  accustomed  to  see  her,  and  I  am  not  sure  but 
it  was  right." 


M.  44.]  REV.   W.   E.   CHANNING.     .  479 

To  WILLIAM  H.  PKESCOTT,  BOSTON. 

DRESDEN,  February  8,  1836. 

....  Your  remarks  about  Dr.  Channing's  book  on  Slavery  bring 
up  the  whole  subject  fresh  before  me.  You  cannot  think  how  difficult 
and  often  how  disagreeable  a  matter  it  is  to  an  American  travelling 
in  Europe,  to  answer  all  the  questions  that  are  put  to  him  about  it,  and 
hear  all  the  remarks  that  are  made  in  consequence.  All  the  compli 
cations  that  arise  from  our  constitutional  provisions  and  local  situa 
tions  are  nearly  unintelligible  to  foreigners.  Once  or  twice,  indeed, 
here,  and  oftener  in  England,  I  went  at  large,  with  sensible  indi 
viduals,  into  the  whole  subject,  and  they  were,  of  course,  satisfied. 
But,  in  general,  the  naked  fact  of  the  existence  of  a  slave  population, 
under  a  government  that  rests  entirely  on  the  doctrine  of  equal  rights, 
with  the  additional  fact  that  it  is  thought  wrong  to  do  anything  in 
the  purely  free  States  to  promote  immediate  emancipation,  is  all  that 
is  understood  ;  and  on  these  two  grounds  we  are  condemned  in  a  tone 
that  would  surprise  you,  I  think,  if  you  were  here  ;  and  which  is 
none  the  less  decided  or  disagreeable,  because  so  many,  from  a  con 
servative  spirit,  are  disposed  to  find  fault  with  us  whenever  they  can. 

Dr.  Channing's  little  book,  therefore,  will  be  received  with  unhesi 
tating  and  unmingled  consent  and  applause  in  Europe,  and  will  add 
at  once  to  his  reputation,  which  is  already  much  greater  than  I  sup 
posed  ;  not  as  extensive  as  that  of  Washington  Irving,  but  almost  as 
much  so,  and  decidedly  higher.  My  bookseller  here  told  me,  to-day, 
he  thought  an  English  edition  of  his  works  would  sell  well  on  the 
Continent,  they  are  so  frequently  asked  for  in  his  shop  ;  and  Baron 
Billow,  a  young  Prussian,  brought  me  the  other  night  a  letter  from 
the  Duchess  of  Anhalt  Dessau,  inquiring  earnestly  how  she  could 
procure  them  for  herself.*  In  England,  again  and  again,  where  I 
should  least  have  suspected  it,  I  found  him  held  in  the  highest  esti 
mation  ;  one  of  the  old  Besborough  family,  for  instance,  looking  upon 
a  present  of  one  of  his  sermons  as  one  of  the  most  agreeable  things 
that  could  happen  to  him  ;  and  Mrs.  Somerville,  Miss  Joanna  Baillie, 
and  several  other  persons,  of  no  less  note,  declaring  to  me  that  he  was 
generally  regarded  by  their  friends,  as  well  as  themselves,  as  the  best 
writer  of  English  prose  alive. 

If  the  book  on  Slavery  is  written  with  only  the  usual  talent  of  his 

*  Note  by  Mr.  Ticknor  :  "  She  is  a  Prussian  princess',  and  the  most  intimate 
friend  of  the  present  Empress  of  Russia,  having  been  brought  up  with  her. 
Both  are  women  of  talent,  especially  the  Princess." 


480  .LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1836. 

other  works,  I  will  venture  to  predict  that  it  will  be  more  admired 
than  anything  he  has  yet  printed.  One  good,  and  only  one  that  I 
know  of,  can  come  from  this  state  of  opinion  in  Europe  ;  the  South 
ern  States  must  be  rebuked  by  it,  and  it  is  better  the  reproach  should 
come  from  abroad  than  from  New  England  and  the  North.  How 
general  and  strong  it  is  in  Great  Britain  I  need  not  tell  you,  for  you 
see  how  Sir  Robert  Peel,  and  O'Connell,  the  "  Standard,"  and  the 
"  Morning  Chronicle,"  —  the  High  Tories  because  they  dislike  us,  and 
the  Whigs  because  they  choose  to  be  consistent,  —  all  unite  in  one 
chorus,  ever  since  they  have  gotten  rid  of  slavery  in  the  West  Indies 
so  much  more  easily  than  they  feared.  Just  so  it  is  on  the  Continent. 
Tocqueville's  acute  book,  which  contains  so  much  truth  as  well  as 
error  about  us,  —  and  which  Talleyrand  says  is  the  ablest  book  of  the 
kind  published  since  Montesquieu's  "Spirit  of  Laws," — has  explained 
the  matter  with  a  good  degree  of  truth,  but  with  great  harshness.  So, 
too,  lately,  a  series  of  very  able  articles  in  the  Journal  des  Ddbats, 
the  government  paper,  mixing  up  slavery  and  the  mobs  of  last  sum 
mer,  and  showing  up  the  infirmities  of  our  institutions  and  charac 
ter,  with  much  knowledge  of  facts  and  an  extremely  evil  disposition 
towards  us  as  a  people,  have  produced  a  good  deal  of  effect.  And  just 
so,  too,  all  the  leading  papers  throughout  Germany,  who  repeat  these 
reproaches  against  us  in  perfect  good  faith,  cause  us  to  be  here  very 
frequently  set  down  for  a  good  deal  of  humbug  in  our  pretensions  to 
freedom. 

One  thing,  however,  has  won  us  much  honor.  General  Jackson's 
message,  as  far  as  France  is  concerned,  —  for  they  know  nothing 
about  the  rest  of  it,  —  has  been  applauded  to  the  skies.  The  day 
it  arrived  I  happened  to  dine  with  the  Eussian  Minister  here,  in 
a  party  of  about  thirty  persons  ;  and  I  assure  you  it  seemed  to  me 
as  if  nine-and-twenty  of  them  came  up  to  me  with  congratulations. 
I  was  really  made  to  feel  awkward  at  last ;  but  this  has  been  the 
tone  all  over  the  Continent,  where  they  have  been  confoundedly 
afraid  we  might  begin  a  war  which  would  end  no  prophecy  could 
tell  where.  The  spirit,  too,  with  which  New  York  has  met  the  great 
calamity  it  has  suffered  —  and  which  was  vastly  exaggerated  —  has 
redounded  to  our  honor  more,  I  suppose,  than  we  deserved. 

So  that,  taking  all  things  together,  notwithstanding  the  slave 
question,  and  the  mobs  and  riots  of  last  summer,  —  which  it  was 
both  disagreeable  and  difficult  to  explain,  —  and  notwithstanding 
the  reproaches  of  now  and  then  a  philanthropist  who  has  heard 
about  the  Cherokees,  it  is  still  very  comfortable  to  be  an  American  ; 


M.  44.]  LAST  COURT  BALL.  481 

and  is,  on  the  whole,  an  extremely  good  passport  to  general  kindness 
and  good-will.  At  any  rate,  I  would  not  change  my  passport  — 
signed  by  some  little  scamp  of  an  under-secretary  at  Washington, 
whose  name  I  have  forgotten  —  for  any  one  of  the  fifteen  hundred 
that  are  lying  with  it  at  the  Police  in  Dresden,  from  Russia,  France, 
and  England. 

My  own  life  here  is,  in  the  main,  a  quiet  and  very  agreeable  one. 
Society  makes  no  claims  till  dinner-time,  and  even  then  few  ;  for 

dinner-parties  are  rare Calls  are  made  at  five  or  six  o'clock 

in  the  evening,  and  parties  begin  at  eight  or  nine We  have 

the  whole  day,  and  often  the  evenings,  to  ourselves.  I  read  pretty 
hard,  for  I  find  a  great  deal  to  make  up,  and  every  moment  of  my 
time  is  occupied.  I  pick  up,  among  other  things,  a  good  deal  for 
my  Spanish  matters  ;  but  it  is  quite  impossible  to  write  out  a  book 
here,  so  importunate  are  the  demands  for  mere  reading  and  studying 
upon  one  who  wishes  to  talk,  in  such  society  as  I  see  constantly,  upon 
anything  like  equal  terms  with  the  persons  of  which  it  is  composed, 
or  improve  the  advantages  pressed  upon  him. 

JOURNAL. 

February  16.  —  To-day  being  Mardi-gras,  the  last  day  of  Carnival, 
the  King  gave  his  last  ball.  It  began  at  six  o'clock,  as  usual  ;  we 
had  supper  at  half  past  eight,  and  the  dancing  continued  until 
twelve,  immediately  after  which  all  amusements  and  refreshments 
were  stopped,  the  princes  and  princesses  went  round  and  spoke  to  as 
many  of  the  company  as  they  could,  and  then  all  came  away.  It 
is  the  only  ball  of  the  season  which  we  have  stayed  through  to  the 
end,  but  this  time  we  saw  the  whole  of  it,  —  the  dance  of  the  gross- 
vater,  with  which  these  entertainments  are  ended,  and  all.  It  was 
brilliant  and  animated  ;  the  party  being  required  to  come  in  full 
dress,  and  the  populace  being  admitted  behind  the  barriers  to  see 
the  show,  as  they  were  at  the  first  ball 

Before  supper,  in  a  corner  of  the  presence-chamber,  I  had  an 
hour  of  most  agreeable  talk  with  Mad.  de  Ltittichau,  Prince  John, 
Countess  Bose,  and  Mad.  de  Bliimner  ;  a  part  of  which  was  none  the 
less  piquant  from  being  on  the  principle  and  feeling  of  loyalty,  which 
I  told  them  I  supposed  an  American  republican  was  not  fairly  capa 
ble  of  comprehending.  Mad.  de  Liittichau  managed  the  conversation 
with  great  dexterity  and  esprit. 

February  20.  —  I  was  engaged  this  evening  at  Tieck's,  but  we  were 

VOL.  I.  21  E  E 


482  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOE.  [1836. 

both  summoned  to  Prince  John's,  where,  to  the  same  party  that  was 
there  before,  —  viz.  Forster,  Carus,  and  Baudissin,  —  Tieck  read  five 
more  cantos  of  the  Prince's  translation  of  the  Purgatorio,  XXIV.  - 
XXIX.  Everything  went  on  just  as  it  did  before,  and  was  equally 
creditable  to  all  parties  concerned  in  it ;  the  criticisms  being  free, 
full,  and  fair,  and  the  spirit  in  which  they  were  received  that  of  a 
person  really  disposed  to  profit  by  them. 

February  24.  —  This  evening  we  had  a  counterpart  to  the  amuse 
ment  of  last  evening  [when  Tieck  had  read,  at  his  own  house,  the 
Second  Part  of  "Henry  IV."].  Tieck  read  "As  You  Like  It,"  and 
showed  another  aspect  of  his  remarkable  talent  in  this  way.  I  no 
ticed  as  peculiarities  that  he  read  the  part  of  Orlando  with  more  of 
an  angry  movement  than  I  have  been  accustomed  to  hear  it,  and 
that  he  made  Sir  Oliver  Martext  stutter,  which,  of  course,  was  arbi 
trarily  done.  It  was  throughout  very  amusing.  The  reading  took 
place  at  Mad.  de  Liittichau's 

March  2.  —  It  is  a  week  since  I  wrote  last,  for  the  Carnival  being 
over,  and  society  much  more  quiet,  we  have  been  able  to  stay  at  home 
and  enjoy  the  luxury  of  doing  what  wre  have  a  mind  to  do,  and  not 
what  we  are  invited  to  do.  I  have  passed  one  evening  with  Lindenau 
and  Tiedge,  and  divided  another  between  Reichenbach  and  the  Cir- 
courts,  for  my  own  pleasure 

The  only  time  I  have  dined  abroad  was  to-day,  at  Vogel's,  the 
portrait  and  historical  painter.  It  was  a  genuinely  German  dinner, 
and  curious  to  me  because  it  is  the  first  one  at  which  I  have  been 
present  in  Dresden  ;  for,  though  I  have  dined  in  several  German 
houses,  there  has  been  too  much  of  a  French  or  Italian  air  about  the 
entertainment  to  have  it  properly  national.  Vogel  is  rich,  and  his 
dinner  was  abundant  and  good,  and  his  company  excellent  ;  consist 
ing  of  Falkenstein,  Forster,  Carus,  Dahl,  Lohrmann,  Haase,  etc. 
But  Mad.  Vogel  was  only  the  upper  servant ;  sitting,  to  be  sure, 
sometimes  at  the  head  of  her  table,  but  constantly  running  out  to 
the  kitchen,  and  often  serving  her  guests.  I  remember  such  things 
frequently  when  I  was  in  Germany  before,  but  this  is  the  first  time  I 
have  seen  them  on  my  present  visit.  It  is  bad  taste,  but  it  belongs 
to  the  whole  German  people,  and  is  only  avoided  in  the  highest 
classes,  where  there  is  always  some  touch  of  foreign  manners.  The 
conversation  was  spirited  and  various,  and  the  sitting  was  continued, 
in  consequence,  nearly  three  hours,  —  a  long  time  for  Germany. 

March  9.  —  Another  week  is  gone,  and  it  has  been  so  much  filled 
with  useful  and  agreeable  occupations  that  it  seems  to  have  been  very 


M.  44.]  HAMLET.  483 

short.  Of  society,  however,  I  have  not  much  to  record One 

evening  the  Count  and  Countess  Circourt  spent  with  us,  at  our  lodg 
ings,  and  made  themselves  very  interesting,  till  quite  late,  by  conver 
sation  about  Italy,  etc.  And  one  evening  I  went  alone  to  Tieck's, 
who  read  to  a  small  party,  consisting  of  Billow,  Sternberg,  Mad.  de 
Luttichau,  and  two  or  three  others,  some  acute  remarks  of  his  own 
upon  Goethe,  whom  he  treated  with  admiration,  indeed,  but  with  an 
admiration  more  measured  and  discriminating  than  is  usual  among 
the  Germans. 

There  remains  still  one  evening  more  of  which  something  special 
should  be  said,  —  an  evening  that  we  gave  to  seeing  Hamlet,  in  Schle- 
gel's  excellent  translation. 

The  house  was  entirely  full,  not  a  ticket  remaining  to  be  sold  when 
the  play  began,  —  a  fact  which  has  not  occurred  before  this  season,  — 
and  the  audience  was  excessively  impatient  of  the  smallest  noise,  in 
one  case  hissing  a  man  for  blowing  his  nose  louder  than  they  thought 
seemly.  Almost  the  whole  piece,  as  it  stands  in  the  original,  was 
given,  so  that  the  representation  lasted  quite  three  hours  and  a  half. 

Taken  as  a  whole,  it  was  better  given  than  I  ever  saw  it.  All  the 
inferior  parts,  without  exception,  were  well  played.  Polonius  was  no 
more  ridiculous  than  the  poet  intended  he  should  be  ;  and  the  King 
was  a  bold,  bad  man,  indeed,  but  had  that  force  of  character  which 
his  very  crimes  imply,  and  by  which  it  is  plain  he  overawes  Hamlet, 
and  checks  Laertes.  The  ceremonies  of  a  Court  were  well  observed  ; 
and  whatever  belonged  to  the  mechanism,  scenery,  dresses,  and  cos 
tumes  of  the  piece  was  nicely  considered  and  excellently  carried 
through. 

Ophelia  was  not  tender  and  gentle  enough,  and  treated  her  father 
and  brother  too  much  like  a  spoiled  school-girl Hamlet  him 
self  was  a  still  greater  failure.  Devrient*  played  it,  and  made  it  sen 
timental  and  weak,  full  of  grimaces,  starts,  and  extravagances,  and 
wanting  princely  dignity  everywhere.  The  ghost  was  very  good, 
shadowy,  ....  and  each  time  had  a  long,  thin,  grayish  cloak  which 
swept  like  a  veil  and  train,  far  behind.  Hamlet  most  unsuitably  fell 
on  the  ground  at  both  visitations,  though  he  kept  his  eyes  fastened  on 
the  spectre  continually.  However,  one  or  two  things  pleased  me,  even 
in  Hamlet,  and  were  new,  as  far  as  I  know.  In  the  talk  about  the 
stage  he  addressed  the  greater  part  of  the  remarks  to  Horatio,  and 
not  to  the  actor,  in  a  very  natural  and  easy  manner,  sitting  the 
whole  time ;  and  in  changing  the  foils  he  did  it  evidently  because 

*  Einil  Devrient. 


484  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1836. 

he  felt  himself  wounded  treacherously,  threw  down  his  own  weapon 
and  grasped  that  of  Laertes,  which  he  wrenched  from  him,  while  La 
ertes  in  turn  caught  up  Hamlet's  and  defended  himself  as  well  as 
he  could.  Indeed,  the  piece  was  acted  with  great  effect.  Many  wept 
bitterly,  and  all  seemed  deeply  interested.  The  royal  family  were  all 
out  to  see  it,  which  was  quite  remarkable  ;  and,  what  seemed  very 
curious  to  me,  it  was,  for  the  sake  of  convenience  in  making  the 
stage  arrangements,  divided  into  six  acts. 

Every  now  and  then  the  want  of  the  English  came  over  me  with  a 
strange  power.  I  was  seeing  what  was  familiar  to  me,  and  hearing 
what  was  foreign  ;  and  sometimes  when  a  portion  of  the  original  re 
curred  to  my  recollection,  with  its  rich  and  beautiful  rhythm,  I  felt 
most  oddly  confused.  But  it  was  on  the  whole  a  very  interesting 
evening. 

I  spent  one  forenoon  with  Retzsch,  whose  genius  and  simplicity  I 
admire  more,  the  more  I  know  him  ;  and  another  forenoon  I  spent  with 
Count  Colloredo,  the  Austrian  Minister,  who  has  been  with  his  family 
in  Vienna  all  winter,  on  account  of  the  death  of  his  sister,  and  is  but 
just  returned  to  Dresden.  He  is  a  young  man,  and  has  the  reputa 
tion  of  great  abilities,  belongs  to  one  of  the  oldest  and  most  powerful 
families  in  the  Austrian  Empire,  and  has  a  right  therefore  to  great 
promotion  in  the  state.  I  went  to  see  him,  to  look  at  some  fine  maps 
of  Austria,  and  to  ask  him  about  roads  and  scenery  in  reference  to  our 
next  summer's  journeyings,  and  found  him  quite  familiar  with  all  I 
wanted  to  know,  and  much  disposed  to  be  kind  and  useful. 

March  21.  —  Last  evening  we  were  invited  to  the  palace,  and  passed 
the  time  quite  pleasantly  in  a  small  party  of  forty  or  fifty  persons,  in 
the  Princess  Augusta's  apartments.  The  occasion  was  a  curious  one. 
Every  spring  she  purchases  a  large  amount  of  lace,  needlework,  etc., 
which  the  poor  women  from  the  mountains  bring  to  Dresden  for  sale, 
and  then,  making  a  lottery  of  the  whole,  which  contains  many  tempt 
ing  prizes  for  the  ladies,  her  grand-maitre  gets  rid  of  the  tickets 
among  the  Court  and  her  friends  ;  .  .  .  .  and  then  she  has  the  pleas 
ure  of  distributing  the  money  thus  received  among  the  same  class  of 
the  poor  whose  work  she  had  originally  purchased. 

After  tea  to-night  we  went  into  her  beautiful  saloon,  where  are  the 
admirable  tapestries,  and  there,  amidst  much  laughing  and  talking, 
the  lottery  was  drawn  by  the  Princess  Frederick  and  the  Princess 
John.*  Whenever  any  person  of  the  party  drew  a  prize  it  was  deliv- 

*  This  Princess  had  been  ill  during  the  winter,  and  therefore  never  present 
at  the  Court  entertainments. 


JE.  44.]  VON  RAUMER.  485 

ered  to  them  at  once.  A.  drew  an  embroidered  pocket-handkerchief, 
which  was  appropriate  enough  ;  but  some  of  the  lace  dresses  that  fell 
to  single  gentlemen  excited  a  good  deal  of  merriment.  There  was  a 
great  cry  among  the  princesses  for  "  Fritz,"  as  they  called  him, — mean 
ing  the  Co-Eegent,  —  two  or  three  times,  when  he  gained  prizes  ;  and 
in  general  there  was  as  little  ceremony  as  possible,  except  that  the 
princes  and  princesses  retired  before  the  rest  of  the  company.  It  was 
an  elegant  party,  and  there  were  many  agreeable  persons  at  it. 

April  1.  —  This  morning  we  had  a  visit  from  Von  Raumer,  who  is 
here,  as  he  always  is  at  Easter  and  Michaelmas,  to  spend  a  few  days 
with  Tieck.  I  liked  him.  He  is  a  small  man,  a  little  more,  I  sup 
pose,  than  fifty  years  old,  quick  in  his  motions  and  perceptions,  and 
very  frank  in  the  expression  of  his  opinions  and  feelings. 

He  was  originally  one  of  the  confidential  employes  in  the  Chancery 
at  Berlin,  when  Stein  and  Prince  Hardenberg  were  Chancellors  ;  and 
Tieck  says  that  the  famous  Stadte-Ordnung,  by  which  the  inhabitants 
of  the  towns  have  been  permitted  to  elect  their  own  municipal 
officers,  was  a  measure  projected  and  arranged  by  Von  Raumer. 
When  he  found,  however,  that  Prince  Hardenberg  would  go  no 
further  in  giving  free  institutions  to  Prussia,  he  asked  for  his  dis 
mission  from  office,  assigning  this  as  his  reason  for  leaving  the  gov 
ernment.  Still  they  parted  as  friends,  and  the  Prince  told  him  that 
he  should  have  his  choice  of  any  of  the  places  in  the  gift  of  the 
crown  for  which  he  was  fitted ;  expecting  and  intending  that  he 
should  take  some  presidency,  or  other  similar  place,  worth  from  five 
to  eight  thousand  thalers  a  year.  But  Von  Raumer  ....  asked  for 
a  professorship  of  history  at  Breslau,  worth  twelve  hundred  thalers 

a  year It  was  given,  of  course,  without  an  instant's  hesitation, 

and  his  success  there,  his  removal  to  Berlin,  his  fame  as  a  teacher,  his 
Hohenstauffen,  his  great  work  now  in  progress  on  the  history  of 
the  three  last  centuries,  etc.,  etc.,  show  he  chose  rightly.  He  is, 
too,  I  am  told,  a  very  happy  man,  and  is  certainly  much  valued  and 
loved  by  his  friends. 

In  the  evening  I  met  him  at  Tieck's,  who  read  part  of  a  small 
unpublished  work  of  Von  Raumer's  on  Mary  Queen  of  Scots,  which 
gives  a  less  favorable  view  of  her  character  than  even  Turner's  work. 
....  It  is  interesting,  and  went  so  far  as  to  excuse  Elizabeth  en 
tirely  up  to  the  moment  of  Mary's  arrival  in  England 

April  5.  —  This  evening  we  went  by  invitation  to  Tieck's,  and 
found  there  the  Einsiedels,  the  Circourts,  Mad.  de  Liittichau,  Von 
Raumer,  etc.,  ....  to  whom  Tieck  read  "Twelfth  Night"  most 


486  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOE.  [1836. 

amusingly  welL  But  his  evenings,  after  the  genuine  Saxon,  fashion, 
are  over  by  nine  o'clock ;  and  at  nine  we  took  the  Count  and 
Countess  Circourt  in  our  carriage  and  finished  the  evening  at  Mr. 
Forbes's 

When  we  carried  home  the  Circourts  and  set  them  down  at  their 
hotel,  we  were  obliged  to  bid  them  farewell,  for  they  leave  Dresden 
for  France  in  the  morning.  We  were  sorry,  quite  sorry,  to  part  with 
them,  for  they  are  among  the  most  intellectual,  accomplished,  and 
agreeable  people  we  have  seen  in  Dresden.  Between  them,  they 
speak  fourteen  languages  ;  English,  French,  German,  and  Italian 
extremely  well,  I  am  sure ;  and,  of  course,  the  Russian,  of  which  I 
know  nothing. 

April  11.  —  Last  evening  the  Regent  gave  a  ball It  was 

the  most  splendid  entertainment  we  have  had,  because  the  suite  of 
seven  apartments  which  he  opened  on  the  occasion  were  all  fitted  up 
since  he  was  made  Regent  in  1831  ;  and,  if  they  are  less  grand  and 
solemn  than  the  King's,  are  better  fitted,  by  their  beautiful  and  fresh 

tapestry  and  furniture,  for  such  a  fite The  supper  was  like 

all  the  suppers  at  the  palace I  sat  at  the  table  of  the  Prin 
cess  Augusta,  where,  as  the  room  for  the  royal  party  was  smaller 
than  heretofore,  so  that  each  member  had  not  a  table,  I  found  also, 
and  was  glad  to  find,  Prince  John.  I  had  talked  with  him  a  good 
deal  already,  and  now  the  conversation  was  very  agreeably  kept  up, 
Mr.  Forbes,  Countess  Stroganoff,  Mad.  de  Zeschau,  and  two  or  three 
other  pleasant  persons  making  up  the  party.  Among  other  things 
we  talked  about  Mary  Stuart,  and  there  was  a  great  disposition  in 
everybody  present  to  defend  Elizabeth,  —  except  in  Mr.  Forbes  and 
myself,  —  which  was  curious,  as  two  or  three  of  them  were  Cath 
olics. 

Mr.  Forbes,  apropos  of  this  discussion,  said  that  in  his  family  they 
still  preserve  the  autograph  letter  of  one  of  his  ancestors,  who  was 
a  maid  of  honor  to  Queen  Elizabeth,  begging  her  friends  to  let  her 
come  home  to  them,  because  her  life  was  made  miserable  at  Court 
by  the  Queen's  ill-temper,  who,  she  said,  was  just  then  in  constant 
bad-humor  about  her  lovers,  and  plagued  her  —  the  writer  —  all  day 
long  with  "  sly  pinches  and  privy  nips,"  which  last,  Mr.  Forbes  said, 
were  the  very  words  of  the  letter. 

April  22.  — To-day  we  dined  with  General  Von  Leyser,  the  Presi 
dent  of  the  Chamber  of  Deputies It  was  quite  elegant  and 

very  pleasant.  The  old  general  himself  has  been  through  all,  per 
haps,  that  man  could  go  through  in  the  last  thirty  years.  He  fought 


JE.  44.]  GENERAL  VON  LEYSER.  487 

at  the  battle  of  Jena,  with  the  Prussians,  against  the  French,  and  six 
weeks  afterwards  fought  with  the  French  against  the  Prussians.* 
He  went  through  the  Russian  campaign,  —  still  on  the  French  side  ; 
was  one  of  eleven,  out  of  above  seven  hundred  officers  under  his 
command,  that  came  back  alive  ;  was  left  for  dead  at  the  battle  of 
Moskwa,  and  had  his  fingers  and  toes  frozen  in  the  night,  but  was 
picked  up  in  the  morning  by  the  Russians  and  sent  as  a  prisoner, 
with  nearly  four  hundred  other  officers,  into  Asia,  where  he  was 
kindly  and  well  treated,  but  where  the  climate  was  so  fatal  to  them 
that  he  was  the  only  person  that  lived  to  get  home,  —  a  happiness 
which  he  enjoyed  only  because  his  wife,  at  Prague,  procured,  through 
the  intercession  of  the  Grand  Duchess  of  Weimar  with  her  brother, 
the  Emperor  Alexander,  an  Ukase  for  his  liberation,  for  he  was  already 
ill,  when  it  arrived,  with  the  disease  of  which  all  the  rest,  sooner  or 
later,  died.  He  did  not  reach  home  till  after  the  battle  of  Leipzic, 
and  then  was  sent  directly  into  France  to  fight  against  the  French, 
which  he  seems  to  have  done  with  a  hearty  good- will. 

He  talks  quite  agreeably,  and  relates  well,  so  that  some  of  his 
stories  produce  a  striking  effect.  I  remember  one  night,  at  the 
theatre,  he  made  me  shudder  at  an  account  of  his  feelings  during  an 
evening  of  the  Russian  campaign,  when,  successively,  every  person 
belonging  to  his  military  household,  seven  in  number,  was  cut  off 
and  put  to  death  by  the  Cossacks. 

I  spent  the  evening  —  after  nine  o'clock,  when  her  salon  opens  — 
at  the  Countess  StroganofP s,  where  I  was  amused  with  a  repartee 
of  the  Princess  Lowenstein.  From  some  accident  we  fell  into  con 
versation  in  German,  and  Count  Gourieff,  the  Russian  Ambassador 
at  Rome,  changed  it  back  to  French,  saying  that,  though  he  spoke 
German  fluently  enough,  he  always  felt  awkwardly  when  he  talked  it 
with  such  persons  as  were  round  the  table  then  ;  because,  said  he, 
"  Je  le  parle  si  rarement  en  bonne  compagnie."  The  thing  was  very 
simply  said,  and  very  truly  said,  and  he  meant  by  it  only,  that,  talk 
ing  German  with  servants  and  tradespeople  every  day,  and  French 
in  all  good  society,  he  had  come  to  separate  and  distinguish  the  two 
languages  accordingly.  But  the  Princess  Lowenstein's  German  blood 
was  up,  and  turning  rather  shortly,  but  very  gayly  upon  him,  she  said, 
"  Mais  vous  parlez  1'Allemand  si  parfaitement,  Mons.  le  Comte,  qu'il 
parait  que  vous  avez  beaucoup  de  pratique."  The  Count  laughed  as 
heartily  and  as  good-naturedly  as  anybody,  but,  as  he  said  to  me, 
"  II  n'y  a  pas  de  reponse  a  cela,  j'irai  jouer"  ;  and  he  went  off  to  the 

*  Following  the  course  of  the  King  of  Saxony. 


488  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1836. 

whist-table,  not  more  disconcerted,  perhaps,  than  a  well-bred  gen 
tleman  may  be  permitted  to  be  when  a  handsome,  fashionable,  and 
spiritudle  lady  gives  him  a  hard  hit. 

April  26.  —  The  spring  is  so  much  advanced  now,  and  is  become 
so  very  beautiful,  that  we  have  indulged  more  than  ever  in  driving 
through  the  neighborhood  of  Dresden,  chiefly  about  the  Grosse  Gar 
ten  and  up  the  picturesque  little  valley  of  Plauen,  but  also  upon  the 

Elbe  by  Findlater's,  and  once  out  to  Moreau's  monument The 

time  and  circumstances  of  Moreau's  death  will  be  judged  of  differ 
ently,  of  course,  according  to  the  different  points  of  view  from  which 
they  may  be  considered ;  but  I  cannot  help  regretting  that  one  of  the 
few  elevated  and  respectable  men  formed  by  the  French  Eevolution 
should  have  died  in  arms  against  his  country  ;  and  I  felt  the  other 
day  that  there  was  deep  truth  in  the  reply  of  a  Frenchman  to  an 
English  gentleman,  who  said,  "  Je  viens  de  visiter  le  monument  de 
votre  cornpatriote,  Morean  " ;  to  which  the  French  gentleman  replied, 
"  Pardon,  monsieur,  il  n'etait  pas  mon  compatriote,  car  moi  je  suis 
Franfais."  .... 

May  1. —  To-day  there  was  a  Court,  and  I  went  to  it  and  took  the 
proper  ceremonious  leave  of  the  royal  family.  It  was  very  full, 
because  it  is  the  last  of  the  season,  as  they  all  go  to  Pillnitz  to 
morrow,  and  do  not  return  till  October.  The  circle  lasted  a  good 
while  ;  the  princesses  were  there,  and  it  was  plain  they  intended  not 
only  to  be  civil,  but  to  be  kind. 

Our  Charge  d' Affaires  at  Brussels,  Mr.  Legare,  arrived  at  Dresden 
early  this  morning,  to  pass  a  few  days.  We  missed  him  when  we 
were  in  Belgium,  but  he  wrote  to  me  soon  afterwards  that  he  would 
come  and  return  our  visit  in  Dresden. 

May  4.  —  Mr.  Legare  left  us  this  evening We  were  sorry  to 

part  from  him,  for  he  is  a  man  of  very  agreeable  as  well  as  remark 
able  powers,  and  he  has  literally  been  the  whole  of  each  day  with  us. 
....  His  conversation  is  very  rich,  and  was  truly  refreshing  to  us, 
after  having  been  so  long  without  the  pleasure  of  good,  solid  English 
talk.  He  is  a  good  scholar,  with  a  good  and  rather  severe  taste  ;  a 
wise  and  deep  thinker,  who  has  reflected  a  great  deal,  and  made  up 
his  opinions  on  a  great  number  of  subjects  ;  and  a  politician  who 
sees  the  weakness  and  defects  of  our  government,  and  the  bad  ten 
dencies  of  things  among  us,  as  clearly  as  any  person  I  have  ever 
talked  with. 

He  seems  to  belong  to  the  Jackson  party,  only  from  the  circum 
stance  that  he  was  of  the  Union  party  in  South  Carolina  ;  for  his  views 


M.  44.]          DEPARTURE  FROM  DRESDEN.  489 

are  quite  too  broad  and  high  for  any  faction,  and  he  is  as  far  from 
being  a  Democrat  as  any  man  in  the  United  States.  We  have  few 
men  like  him,  either  as  scholars,  thinkers,  or  talkers.  I  knew  him 
very  well  at  Edinburgh  in  1819,  and  thought  him  then  an  uncom 
mon  person  ;  but  it  is  plain  he  has  taken  a  much  higher  tone  than  I 
then  anticipated. 

Sunday,  May  8.  —  This  morning  Prince  John,  being  in  town  for 
mass,  sent  for  me  to  come  and  see  him.  He  was,  as  he  always  is, 
agreeable  and  kind,  offering  vis  letters  for  Berlin,  and  for  his  brother- 
in-law,  the  Grand  Duke  of  Tuscany,  which  I  gladly  accepted. 

May  10.  — .  .  .  .  I  dined  to-day  most  agreeably  with  Prince  John, 
nobody  present  but  the  aide-de-camp  de  service,  who  did  not  open  his 
lips,  though  the  conversation  was  extremely  various  as  well  as  vol 
uble.  I  do  not  know  whether  this  was  etiquette  or  not.  The  Prince 
told  a  good  many  stories ;  a  habit  into  which  persons  of  his  rank 
often  fall,  from  the  circumstance  that  it  tends  to  relieve  them  from 
the  embarrassment  of  either  answering  or  asking  questions.  But  he 
tells  them  very  well,  and  quite  apropos.  He  was  pleasant  and  kind, 
and  protracted  the  conversation  after  dinner,  until  he  was  obliged  to 
get  into  his  carriage  for  Pillnitz.  I  was  sorry  to  part  from  him,  for 
if  I  were  to  see  many  more  princes  in  Europe  than  I  shall  see,  I 
should  not  find  one  so  good  a  scholar,  and  few  so  entirely  respectable 
in  their  whole  characters,  public  and  private. 

I  spent  the  evening  with  Baron  Lindenau,  and  had  much  interest 
ing  and  exciting  talk  with  him,  for  he  is  one  of  those  men  who  always 
stir  the  minds  of  those  with  whom  they  converse,  partly  by  kindness 
and  genuine  bonhomie,  partly  by  great  acuteness.  I  think  he  is,  on 
the  whole,  the  wisest  man  I  have  seen  since  I  left  America. 

May  11.  —  To  avoid  the  preparations  necessary  to  our  removal 
again,  as  well  as  to  enjoy  a  pleasant  day,  we  went  to-day  to  Tharand, 
a  small  village  at  the  end  of  the  picturesque  valley  of  Plauen,  about 

nine  or  ten  miles  from  Dresden We  had  a  good  dinner  at  a 

nice  old  inn,  and  in  the  evening  went  back  to  Dresden,  where  we  had 
visits  from  Baron  Billow,  from  Mr.  Paez  de  la  Cadena,  the  late  Span 
ish  Minister  to  Russia,  the  Princess  Lowenstein  and  her  sister  Bar 
oness  Kahlden,  and  Mr.  Forbes.  Mr.  Forbes  outstayed  them  all,  and 
at  last  bade  us  good  by  with  a  degree  of  feeling  which  I  had  not  at  all 
anticipated,  notwithstanding  his  constant  kindness  to  us. 

May  12.  —  It  was  not  agreeable  to  leave  Dresden  to-day We 

have  been  in  all  respects  well  there  ....  almost  six  months  ;  kindly 
received  by  everybody,  and  much  regarded  by  a  few.  It  has  more, 
21* 


490  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1836. 

much  more  than  fulfilled  the  expectations  we  indulged  when  we 
entered  it,  ....  and  I  think  not  one  of  us,  not  even  one  of  our  ser 
vants,  left  it  without  a  strong  feeling  of  regret. 

While  travelling  in  Europe,  1815  —  19,  Mr.  Ticknor,  after 
having  studied  the  resources,  collections,  and  peculiarities  of  a 
city,  wrote  at  length,  and  with  some  minuteness,  a  sketch  of 
what  he  found  in  each,  of  its  externals  and  its  society ;  so  now, 
before  leaving  Dresden,  he  wrote  at  large  of  its  institutions  and 
its  splendid  collections.  Of  the  state  of  the  arts  and  character 
of  society  we  give  the  following  remarks,  omitting  the  rest, 
though  it  is  interesting  and  acute  :  — 

The  state  of  the  arts  in  Dresden  is  not,  perhaps,  so  high  as  might 
be  expected  from  the  great  opportunities  offered  to  form  artists,  and 
from  the  great  number  of  artists  who  constantly  avail  themselves  of 
these  opportunities.  Of  sculpture,  or  sculptors,  I  heard  almost  noth 
ing,  and  certainly  nothing  that  induced  me  to  visit  a  single  atelier. 
An  architect  has  not  been  named  to  me.  But  a  great  deal  is  done 
in  lithography,  and  well  done,  as  the  beautiful  work  now  publishing 
on  the  Gallery  proves  beyond  all  doubt ;  and  there  is  at  least  one 
distinguished  engraver  here,  —  Steinla,  —  who  says  that  in  Weimar, 
in  1816,  he  called  on  me,  and  asked  me  if  I  would  advise  him  to 
emigrate  to  America,  and  that  I  dissuaded  him,  on  the  ground  that 
he  showed  much  promise  in  his  art,  and  that  in  America  he  would 
not  be  able  to  form  himself  to  such  eminence  as  he  could  at  home, 
—  a  piece  of  advice  which  was,  I  think,  judicious,  but  which  I  do  not 
at  all  remember  to  have  given.* 

Of  painters  there  are  enough.  Retzsch,  though  his  coloring  is  bad, 
is  undoubtedly  at  the  head  of  the  whole,  and  one  of  the  most  genial, 
original,  and  interesting  persons  I  have  ever  known  ;  but  Retzsch  has 
not  been  formed  by  Dresden,  and  has  had  but  little  influence  on  it. 
Just  so  is  it  with  Dahl,  the  Norwegian,  who  is  a  very  gifted  person, 
but  who  has  taken  too  much  to  Northern,  wild,  and  fantastic  scenery. 
Vogel  is  a  true  child  of  the  Gallery,  and  is  as  stiff  and  hard  as  mere 
imitation  need  to  make  a  man  ;  but  he  paints  chiefly  portraits 

*  This  was  one  of  many  instances  of  unexpected  recognition  which  occurred 
to  Mr.  Ticknor  in  this  and  his  later  visit  to  Europe.  Steinla  saw  him  in  a  room 
of  the  gallery,  and,  going  towards  him,  called  him  at  once  by  name,  and  re 
ferred  to  his  former  visit  to  him,  which  he  made  at  the  suggestion  of  Goethe. 
The  strong  impression  he  made  caused  several  similar  incidents. 


JE.44.]  SOCIETY  IN  DKESDEN.  491 

Of  the  society,  as  a  general  remark,  it  may  be  observed,  that  it  is 
divided  into  many  circles,  which  know  little  of  each  other ;  but  that, 
like  all  the  Continental  cities,  —  except  those  which  depend  on  com 
merce,  and  a  few  of  the  very  largest,  —  it  is  only  in  the  highest  cir 
cles  that  real  elegance  or  real  ease  is  to  be  found.  The  reason  is 
plain.  There  is  little  wealth  in  the  other  circles,  and  little  habit 
of  receiving  or  entertaining  company.  Fortunately,  the  Court  of 
Saxony  is  a  truly  moral,  respectable,  and,  in  many  respects,  quite  an 
intellectual  Court,  so  that  the  tone  of  the  society  about  it  is  good. 
....  The  diplomatic  gentlemen,  who  form  a  very  prominent  part  of 
this  circle  necessarily,  are  very  pleasant  persons,  have  no  difficulties 

with  one  another,  and  add  their  full  proportion  to  its  agrements 

Of  the  Saxons  who  belong  to  it,  nothing  can  be  more  respectable 
than  Lindenau,  the  Watzdorffs,  the  Zeschaus,  Ltittichaus,  Leysers,  etc. 
The  rich  and  luxurious  Russians  and  Poles,  who  swarm  here  in  the 
winter,  form  a  sort  of  appendix  to  the  society  of  the  Court,  but  not 
very  closely  connected  with  it.  Their  headquarters  this  winter  have 
been  at  Count  Stroganoff's 

To  the  men  of  letters  I  went  whenever  I  wanted  their  highly  cul 
tivated  knowledge  and  conversation,  and  nothing  else,  for  they  are 
best  seen  in  their  studies.  Tieck,  indeed,  received  every  evening, 
but  his  soirees  would  have  been  very  formal  and  dull,  except  for  his 
own  racy  talk  and  his  admirable  readings  ;  besides  which,  the  res 
angusta  domi  are  perceptible,  though  he  is  not  so  poor  but  that  he 
has  the  great  luxury  of  a  capital  and  curious  library.  Count  Baudis- 
sin's,  however,  and  Mad.  de  Liittichau's  houses  should  be  noted  as 
places  where  elegance  and  letters,  the  first  society  in  rank,  and  the 
first  in  intellectual  culture,  were  always  to  be  found 

After  all,  however,  though  we  have  now  been  more  than  five 
months  in  Dresden,  we  have  not  been  really  of  it.  The  accounts, 
which  speak  of  us  only  in  our  connection  with  society  here,  might 
leave  the  impression  that  it  has  consumed  a  great  deal  of  our  time, 
but  such  an  impression  would  be  entirely  false.  We  have  been 
abroad  a  good  deal,  it  is  true,  but  still  we  never  before  passed  so 
much  time  in  quiet  enjoyment  and  occupation  at  home.  We  sel 
dom  went  out  in  the  forenoon  till  one  o'clock,  when  we  took  a  drive 

and  a  walk  for  exercise The  afternoon,  too,  has  brought  its 

regular  occupations  with  it,  and  even  the  majority  of  the  evenings 
have  been  spent  at  home,  where  I  have  read  aloud  the  whole  of  the 
"Paradise  Lost,"  and,  indeed,  nearly  the  whole  of  Milton's  poetry, 
the  whole  of  the  "  Task,"  and  eleven  of  Shakespeare's  Plays 


492  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1836. 

And  it  is  owing  mainly  to  this  —  though  I  would  not  undervalue 
the  very  picturesque,  new,  and  striking  society  we  have  seen  so 
much  of,  from  the  Court  down  —  that  I  think  we  feel,  as  Wash 
ington  Irving  said  to  me  in  New  York  about  his  own  visit  here, 
that  the  Dresden  winter  has  been  one  of  the  pleasantest  winters  of 
our  life. 


M.  44.]  BERLIN.  493 


CHAPTEE    XXV. 

Berlin.  —  Neander.  —  Humboldt.  —  Ancillon.  —  Savigny.  —  Bohemia. 
—  Schloss  Tetschen.  —  Prague. 

A  JOUENEY  from  Dresden  to  Berlin,  and  back  again,  was 
-£JL  a  very  different  undertaking  in  1836  from  what  it  is  now, 
five  days  being  consumed  in  going  to  the  Prussian  capital,  with 
halts  for  the  night  at  Leipzic,  Dessau,  Wittenberg,  and  Potsdam, 
and  three  days  required  for  the  return.  In  Berlin,  where  Mr. 
Ticknor  and  his  family  arrived  on  the  17th  of  May,  they  wit 
nessed  a  great  review  and  sham  fight  of  twenty  thousand  men, 
at  which  the  Dukes  of  Orleans  and  Nemours  were  present,  and 
on  the  19th  Mr.  Ticknor  began  his  visits,  of  which  he  describes 
the  most  interesting  as  follows  :  — 

May  19.  — In  the  afternoon  I  made  some  visits,  but  found  nobody 
....  except  Neander,  the  Church  historian,  a  perfect  type  of  such 
German  students  as  I  used  to  see  often  when  I  was  here  before,  but 
of  whom  this  is  the  first  specimen  I  have  seen  this  time  ;  living  up 
three  or  four  pair  of  stairs,  buried  in  books,  so  near-sighted  that  he 
can  see  little  more  than  an  inch  beyond  his  nose,  and  so  ignorant  of 
the  world  that  the  circle  of  his  practical  knowledge  is  not  much  wider 
than  that  of  his  vision  ;  dirty  in  his  person,  and  in  the  midst  of  con 
fusion  ;  but  learned  withal,  earnest,  kind,  and  I  thought  conscien 
tious.  I  should  be  glad  to  see  more  of  him,  and  wish  we  had  many 
such  at  home. 

May  20.  —  Mr.  Forster*  came  this  morning,  and  carried  us  to  see 

the  collection  of  antiques  and  the  picture-gallery The  first  we 

visited  was  the  collection  of  antiques,  which  is  placed  partly  in  a  fine 

rotunda  in  the  centre  of  the  building It  did  not  strike  me  as 

a  very  good  collection  in  any  respect We  saw  it  hastily,  and 

shall  go  again,  but  two  or  three  things  struck  me  a  good  deal ;  among 

*  Head  of  one  of  the  public  collections  in  the  Arts,  and  formerly  Professor  in 
the  University  of  Berlin. 


494  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1836. 

others  a  bust  of  Julius  Csesar  in  green  basalt,  the  finest  bust  in  the 
gallery,  and  the  most  distinct  and  characteristic  head  of  him  I  have 
ever  seen  ;  and  the  beautiful  bronze  boy,  stretching  his  arms  upward 
in  worship,  four  feet  four  inches  high,  of  which  I  have  often  seen 
casts,  but  never  before  saw  the  exquisite  original.  It  was  found  in 
the  Tiber,  and  given  by  Clement  XL  to  Prince  Eugene,  after  which 
it  went  to  Prince  Lichtenstein,  and  out  of  his  collection  it  was  bought 
by  Frederick  II.  for  ten  thousand  rix  dollars.  It  is  decidedly  the  finest 
ancient  work  of  art  in  Berlin,  and  would  be  a  beautiful  one  anywhere. 

In  a  note  written  a  few  days  later,  Mr.  Ticknor  says  :  — 

It  is  a  curious  fact,  that  in  the  fine  collection  of  vases  kept  in  this 
same  building  we  afterwards  saw  one  bearing  on  its  sides  a  repre 
sentation  of  a  sculptor  at  work  on  a  figure,  with  his  tools  about  him, 
and  the  figure  was  obviously  the  same  with  that  of  this  worshipping 
boy.  Is  it  possible  that  this  vase  came  from  the  tomb  of  the  very 
sculptor  of  this  statue,  and  that  thus,  after  the  lapse  of  two  or  three 
thousand  years,  and  at  the  distance  of  as  many  miles,  this  beautiful 
work,  and  the  record  of  it,  have  been  thus  strangely  brought  to 
gether  by  the  counter-currents  of  conquests  and  revolution,  which 
have  driven  the  seats  of  empire  from  Greece  to  Italy,  and  from  Italy 
to  the  barbarous  North,  carrying  in  their  train  the  arts  and  monu 
ments  of  all  ? 

....  The  picture-gallery  is  arranged  —  it  is  not  too  much  to  say  — 
with  magnificence,  as  well  as  taste It  is  a  large  gallery,  com 
prising  something  in  all  the  schools,  —  though  not  always  of  all  the 
masters  who  ought  to  be  there,  —  perfectly  well  arranged  in  historical 
order,  so  as  to  be  easily  studied  and  understood,  in  rich  and  beautiful 
halls,  fresh  and  beautiful  frames,  admirably  well  managed  and  cared 
for  ;  but,  after  all,  for  the  number  of  pictures,  not  a  great  many  good 
ones 

On  our  return  home  we  found  Mr.  Wheaton,  who  arrived  yester 
day  from  Copenhagen I  was  very  glad  to  see  a  countryman, 

and  to  come  under  the  protection  of  my  own  minister.  I  went  out 
with  him  and  made  one  or  two  calls,  but  found  nobody  at  home 
excepting  Professor  Gans,  one  of  the  most  popular  lecturers  in  the 
University  here,  and  the  least  liked  by  the  government,  who  have 
restrained  him  somewhat  in  the  exercise  of  his  functions  as  a  teacher. 
It  seemed,  however,  as  if  it  could  hardly  be  necessary,  even  on  their 


M.  44.]  VAKNHAGEN  VON  ENSE.  495 

own  principles.  He  talked,  to  be  sure,  very  freely  upon  political, 
subjects,  and  I  dare  say  may  lecture  very  freely  upon  history,  which 
is  his  principal  branch  ;  but  he  seemed  so  round,  easy,  and  fat,  that  I 
should  hardly  think  there  could  be  much  that,  is  dangerous  in  his 
mitigated  radicalism 

May  21. —  Mr.  Forster  having  the  good-nature  to  continue  our 
cicerone,  we  have  seen  several  things  this  morning  very  pleasantly. 
....  From  the  Gewerbe-Institut  we  were  carried  to  an  old  building 
opposite,  once  the  residence  of  the  Margraves  of  Brandenburg,  now 
containing,  among  other  things,  the  ateliers  of  Rauch,  Wach,  and 

Tieck At  Ranch's  we  saw  many  fine  models  of  works,  finished 

or  undertaken,  —  four  beautiful  winged  Victories  in  marble,  for  the 
King  of  Bavaria  ;  a  beautiful  Danaide  pouring  out  water,  nearly  com 
pleted,  for  the  Crown  Prince  ;  and  several  other  things,  —  but  we 
missed  seeing  himself,  as  he  is  gone  to  Halle  for  a  visit.  I  recollect 
both  Rauch  and  Tieck  very  well,  living  in  the  picturesque  valley  of 
Carrara,  in  1818,  and  hard  at  work  on  the  monuments  to  which  they 
have  since  trusted  their  fame.  I  should  have  been  very  glad,  how 
ever,  to  see  Rauch  again  ;  for  though,  when  I  saw  him,  he  had  already 
settled  his  reptitation  by  the  statue  of  the  Queen  at  Charlottenburg, 
he  had  not  proved  the  greater  compass  of  his  genius  now  shown  in  the 
still  more  beautiful  statue  at  Potsdam,  and  the  statues  of  Blucher, 
Scharnhorst,  and  Billow,  with  their  bas-reliefs  in  the  great  square  in 
Berlin 

I  passed  an  hour  this  evening  at  Miss  Solmar's,  a  well-known 
maiden  lady  of  pleasant  pretensions  in  conversation,  who  talks  all 
tongues  and  keeps  open  house  every  evening.  I  met  there,  besides 
the  Forsters,  —  with  whom  I  went,  —  Varnhagen,  formerly  Prussian 
Minister  in  Bavaria,  and  more  famous  as  the  husband  of  the  famous 
"  Rahel,"  many  of  whose  letters,  etc.,  he  has  published  since  her 
death.  Quite  lately  he  has  printed  two  volumes  of  letters  ad 
dressed  to  her  by  Genz,  W.  von  Humboldt,  and  many  more  distin 
guished  men,  with  characters  of  them  by  himself,  which  excite  a  good 
deal  of  remark.  Genz,  it  appears  by  them,  was  paid  great  sums  of 
money  by  Pitt.  The  lady,  however,  under  all  circumstances,  appears 
to  great  advantage,  and  was  by  common,  if  not  universal  consent,  a 
very  remarkable  person,  counting  among  her  correspondents  and  in 
tellectual  admirers  a  very  large  number  of  the  most  distinguished 
men  in  Germany. 

May  22.  —  I  dined  to-day  ....  with  Count  Raczynski,  a  Pole  of 
large  fortune,  a  very  handsome  man,  a  man  of  letters,  and  given  to 


496  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1836. 

the  arts  ;  has  a  pretty  good  collection  of  modern  pictures,  and  is  now 
about  to  publish,  in  three  quartos,  both  in  French  and  German,  a 
history  of  recent  painting  in  Germany,  the  plates  for  which  he 
showed  me,  —  or  at  least  a  number  of  them,  —  and  if  the  work  is  as 
good  as  the  engravings  that  illustrate  it,  it  will  be  good  enough. 
He  lives  in  the  style  of  a  nobleman  of  the  first  class,  and  gave  us 
a  very  pleasant  dinner.  Von  der  Hagen,  the  editor  of  the  Niebe- 
lungen,  and  the  great  scholar  in  whatever  relates  to  .the  earliest 
German  literature,  dined  there,  with  Brassier,  the  Prussian  Secretary 
of  Legation  at  Paris,  Mr.  Wheaton,  and  one  or  two  others  of  whom 
I  took  no  note.  I  talked  a  good  deal  with  Von  der  Hagen,  and 
was  glad  to  find  he  is  about  to  republish  the  Bodmer  collection, 
with  additions. 

May  23.  —  I  visited  by  appointment  to-day,  at  one  o'clock,  the 
Prime  Minister,  Ancillon,  and  found  him  a  stout,  easy,  dark-com 
plexioned  gentleman,  nearly  seventy  years  old,  with  gray  hair,  almost 
white,  dressing  a  little  point  device  but  with  no  air  of  fashion,  and 
talking  veiy  well  and  liking  to  hear  himself  talk.  He  is  by  birth 
of  Neufchatel,  an  old  possession  of  the  Prussian  monarchy,  which  is 
kept  from  a  principle  of  honor,  not  profit,  so  that,  though  a  French 
man  in  most  respects,  he  is  a  born  subject  of  the  King.  He  is 
mentioned  in  Mad.  de  Stael's  "  Germany,"  with  Humboldt,  John  von 
Mu'ller,  Fichte,  etc.,  among  the  persons  whom  the  King  of  Prussia 
had,  before  1809,  attracted  to  Berlin,  and  fixed  there. 

He  was  originally  a  clergyman,  and  a  fashionable  preacher  to  one 
of  the  French  congregations  in  Berlin,  as  well  as  author  of  a  good 
many  works  in  light  literature  and  some  in  politics,  which  come 
under  the  convenient  name  of  Melanges.  Afterward  he  became  the 
tutor  of  the  present  Crown  Prince  and  heir-apparent,  from  which 
period,  sinking  altogether  the  one  that  preceded  it,  he  gave  me  to 
day  an  aperpu  of  his  own  history.  From  this  it  appeared  that  the 
King  used  to  consult  and  employ  him  about  public  affairs,  while  he 
still  superintended  the  Prince's  education.  This  duty,  he  said,  lasted 
fifteen  years,  and  was  succeeded,  eight  years  ago,  by  the  duty  of  being 
Minister  for  Foreign  Affairs,  a  burthen  over  which  he  groaned  this 
morning,  ....  telling  me  what  a  rafraichissement  it  was  to  escape 
from  it,  sometimes,  an  hour  in  the  morning,  and  read  a  Latin  or 
Greek  book.  I  thought  this  affected,  and  in  bad  taste  ;  but  he  talked 
well,  and  made  phrases  which,  I  am  sure,  pleased  himself.  He  asked 
me  to  dinner  to-day,  but  I  was  engaged  ;  and  then  he  asked  me  to 
come  next  day  after  to-morrow  afternoon,  between  five  and  six  o'clock, 


M.  44.]  PRIME  MINISTER  ANCILLON.  497 

"  pour  causer  un  peu,"  which.  I  thought  rather  an  idle  business  for 
a  Minister  of  State. 

May  24. —  ....  After  we  had  been  through  the  vases  and  the 
gems,  we  met  in  the  gallery  of  pictures,  by  appointment,  its  director, 
Waagen,*  who,  in  the  course  of  about  two  hours  and  a  half,  went 
through  the  whole  of  it,  so  as  to  give  us  a  view  of  the  history  of 
modern  painting,  from  the  Byzantine  times  down  to  the  present. 
His  great  learning,  his  admirable  taste,  and  his  genuine  enthusiasm 
made  it  very  interesting  ;  and  it  was  easy,  talking  as  he  did,  rapidly 
and  well,  with  specimens  before  him,  to  teach  a  good  deal  in  a  short 
time.  I  was  very  glad  to  find  that  he  did  not  think  it  his  duty  to  be 
excessive  in  his  praises  of  his  own  gallery  ;  and  in  truth,  though  we 
enjoyed  his  lecture  very  much,  we  did  not  admire  the  collection  any 
more  than  when  we  first  saw  it. 

In  the  afternoon  we  went  to  the  Sing-Akademie,  to  hear  a  rehearsal 
of  the  music  of  Faust,  composed  by  the  late  Prince  Radzivil,  and 
left  by  him  as  a  legacy  to  this  Institution.  It  is  a  curious  establish 
ment,  which  I  think  could  not  exist  in  any  other  country,  and  of 
which,  I  believe,  no  so  good  specimen  is  to  be  found,  even  in  Ger 
many 

May  25.  —  This  morning  we  had  the  pleasure  of  going  through 
the  collection  of  gems  and  Greek  vases,  with  Professor  Tolken,  their 
learned  keeper  and  director 

In  the  afternoon  I  kept  my  appointment  with  the  Minister  An- 
cillon,  "  pour  causer  un  peu."  He  was  alone  ;  comfortable,  easy,  and 
agreeable,  as  before.  He  talked  about  the  systems  of  politics  now 
prevalent  in  Europe,  and,  as  far  as  I  could  learn,  avowed  his  prefer 
ence  for  a  sort  of  juste  milieu  aristocratique,  which  would  keep  things 
quiet  and  easy  ;  declaring,  for  instance,  that  he  thought  Metternich's 
system  unwise,  but  the  present  management  of  Austria  very  impor 
tant  to  the  welfare  of  all  Germany.  "  Enfin,"  said  he,  "  il  y  a  trois 
systemes  de  politique  a  present  en  Europe  :  il  y  a  d'abord,  le  systeme 
du  mouvement  sans  progres,  c'est  la  revolution  ;  il  y  a  le  systeme  qui 
veut  que  tout  reste  oil  il  est ;  et  il  y  a  le  systeme  du  progres,  par 
moyen  des  lumieres."  This  I  took  to  be  downright  phrase-making. 
On  the  arts  he  talked  better,  especially  of  the  schools  of  Diisseldorf  and 
Munich  ;  but  he  talked  best  upon  matters  of  literature,  for  he  is, 
after  all,  more  of  a  man  of  letters,  I  suspect,  than  anything  else.  He 
said  that  when  Mad.  de  Stael  was  here  she  excited  a  great  sensation, 
and  that  she  had  the  men  of  letters  of  the  time,  as  it  were,  trotted  up 

*  Author  of  various  works  on  art. 


498  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1836. 

and  down  before  her,  successively,  to  see  their  paces.  "  I  was  present," 
he  went  on,  "  when  Fichte's  turn  came.  After  talking  with  him  a 
little  while,  she  said,  '  Now,  Mons.  Fichte,  could  you  be  so  kind  as  to 
give  me,  in  fifteen  minutes  or  so,  a  sort  of  idea  or  apergu  of  your 
system,  so  that  I  may  know  clearly  what  you  mean  by  your  ich, 
your  moi,  for  I  am  entirely  in  the  dark  about  it  ?' 

"  The  notion  of  explaining  in  a  petit  quart  d'heure,  to  a  person  in 
total  darkness,  a  system  which  he  had  been  his  whole  life  developing 
from  a  single  principle  within  himself,  and  spinning,  as  it  were,  out 
of  his  own  bowels,  till  its  web  embraced  the  whole  universe,  was 
quite  shocking  to  the  philosopher's  dignity.  However,  being  much 
pressed,  he  began,  in  rather  bad  French,  to  do  the  best  he  could.  But ' 
he  had  not  gone  on  more  than  ten  minutes  before  Mad.  de  Stael,  who 
had  followed  him  with  the  greatest  attention,  interrupted  him  with  a 
countenance  full  of  eagerness  and  satisfaction  :  '  Ah !  c'est  assez,  je 
comprends,  je  vous  comprends  parfaitement,  Mons.  Fichte'.  Your 
system  is  perfectly  illustrated  by  a  story  in  Baron  Munchausen's 
travels.'  Fichte's  face  looked  like  a  tragedy ;  the  faces  of  the  rest 
of  the  company  a  good  deal  like  a  come'die  larmoyante.  Mad.  de 
Stael  heeded  neither,  but  went  on :  '  For,  when  the  Baron  arrived 
once  on  the  bank  of  a  vast  river,  where  there  was  neither  bridge, 
nor  ferry,  nor  even  a  poor  boat  or  raft,  he  was  at  first  quite  con 
founded,  quite  in  despair  ;  until  at  last,  his  wits  coming  to  his  assist 
ance,  he  took  a  good  hold  of  his  own  sleeve  and  jumped  himself  over 
to  the  other  side.  Now,  Mons.  Fichte',  this,  I  take  it,  is  just  what  you 
have  done  with  your  ich,  your  moi  ;  n'est-ce-pas  ? ' 

"  There  was  so  much  of  truth  in  this,  and  so  much  esprit,  that,  of 
course,  the  effect  was  irresistible  on  all  but  poor  Fichte  himself.  As 
for  him,  he  never  forgot  or  forgave  Mad.  de  Stael,  who  certainly, 
however,  had  no  malicious  purpose  of  offending  him,  and  who,  in 
fact,  praised  him  and  his  ich  most  abundantly  in  her  De  VAlle- 
magne." 

This,  to  be  sure,  is  not  much  like  the  talk  of  a  man  upon  whose 
spirits  the  burthens  of  the  state  rest  with  a  very  fretting  wear.  I 
stayed  with  him  about  an  hour  and  a  half,  and  he  amused  me  the 
whole  time  in  this  way. 

May  26.  —  Alexander  von  Humboldt  came  this  morning  and  spent 
an  hour  with  us.*  ....  He  looks  much  as  he  used  to,  but  older, 
and  his  hair  is  grown  white  ;  his  manners  are  kind  and  flattering 
and  courtly,  even  more  than  they  used  to  be,  though  his  person  and 

*  He  had  been  in  Potsdam  with  the  King  until  the  day  before  this. 


JE.  44.]  SAVIGNY.  499 

movements  are  awkward ;  and  he  talks  with  even  increased  volu 
bility,  pouring  out  stores  of  knowledge  always  in  good  taste,  and 
with  beautiful  illustrations,  but  now  and  then*  media  defonte  leporum 
surgit  amari  aliquid. 

Once  or  twice  he  gave  very  hard  hits  to  M.  Ancillon,  and,  in 
general,  throughout  the  conversation,  maintained  a  very  liberal  tone 
in  politics.  The  King  gives  him  a  large  pension,  but  he  does  not 
keep  house,  living  almost  entirely  at  the  palace  and  in  society,  and 
occasionally  employed  in  affairs  of  the  state.  His  heart,  however, 
is  at  Paris,  where  his  life,  no  doubt,  was  as  agreeable  to  him  as  life 
can  be  ;  and  he  said  very  frankly  this  morning,  as  well  as  with  his 
uniform  courtliness,  that  he  hoped  to  meet  us  there  ;  "  for  you  must 
know,"  said  he,  smiling,  "  I  made  my  bargain  with  the  King,  as  the 
Cantatrici  do,  that  I  should  be  allowed  to  pass  three  months  every 
year  where  I  like,  and  that  is  Paris."  I  never  knew  a  person  at  once 
so  courtly  and  so  bold  in  his  conversation,  or  who  talked  so  fast,  — 
so  excessively  fast,  —  and  yet  so  well. 

We  dined  with  the  English  Minister,  Lord  William  Russell,  the 
second  son  of  the  Duke  of  Bedford,  who  was  aide-de-camp  to  Lord 
Wellington  the  four  last  years  of  the  Peninsular  war,  and,  I  think, 
had  the  command  of  the  British  troops  sent  to  Portugal,  under  Mr. 

Canning's  administration The  dinner  was  agreeable,  but  in 

a  more  purely  English  tone  than  anything  I  have  met  since  we 
left  England.  When  we  were  coming  away,  he  invited  us  very 
earnestly  to  dine  with  him  to-morrow,  and  as  I  hesitated  a  little,  he 
said  that  Humboldt  had  been  to  him  and  asked  him  to  invite  him 
to  meet  us  ;  adding  that'  if  we  would  come  he  would  also  ask  Mr. 
Wheaton.  It  was,  of  course,  too  agreeable  a  proposition  to  be  re 
jected. 

I  passed  the  evening  at  Savigny's,  who,  I  suppose,  next  after  Hum 
boldt,  has  the  highest  intellectual  reputation  of  any  man  in  Berlin  ; 
is  the  author  of  the  great  work  on  the  "History  of  Roman  Law," 
the  head  of  "  the  Historical  School "  in  politics,  as  opposed  to  those 
who  wish  for  great  changes,  or  "  the  Liberal  School,"  of  which  Gans 
is  the  head  ;  and  finally,  much  trusted  and  consulted  by  the  govern 
ment  as  a  practically  wise  and  powerful  man. 

He  lives  in  a  fine  house  near  the  Brandenburg  gate,  and  seems 
more  comfortably  and  even  elegantly  arranged  than  any  German  pro 
fessor  I  remember  to  have  visited.  He  is  tall  and  stately,  a  little 
formal,  perhaps,  and  pretending  in  his  manner,  but  talking  well 
both  in  French  and  German.  His  hair  is  combed  down  smoothly  on 


500  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1836. 

both  sides  of  his  head,  and  his  face  is  red,  so  that  he  has  not  the 
intellectual  look  that  belongs  to  his  character  ;  but  he  reveals  him 
self  at  once  in  his  conversation.  He  seemed  to  understand  our  pres 
ent  politics  in  America  pretty  well,  and  said  he  supposed  President 
Jackson  was  "a  sort  of  Tory  by  instinct,  who,  having  settled  his 
power  on  the  most  absolute  radicalism,  uses  it  with  very  little  re 
straint."  His  sympathies,  of  course,  are  all  with  our  old  Federalists, 
of  whom  he  knew  a  good  deal. 

Some  company  came  in,  and  among  the  rest  the  Baroness  von 
Arnheim,  who  has  recently  published  a  most  ridiculous  book,  con 
taining  a  sentimental  correspondence,  which,  under  the  name  of 
"  Bettina,"  or  "  Little  Betty,"  she  carried  on  with  Goethe  when  she 
was  nearly  forty  years  old  and  he  above  seventy,  representing  her 
self  in  it  as  a  little  girl  of  fifteen  desperately  in  love  with  him.  I 
saw  it  in  Dresden,  and  thought  it  disgusting  ;  and  did  not  wonder 
that  Mrs.  Austin,  in  London,  told  me  she  had  refused  to  translate  it 
from  the  manuscript,  because  she  thought  any  well-taught  English 
woman  would  be  ashamed  to  have  anything  to  do  with  a  book  which 
seemed  to  claim  the  reputation  of  an  intrigue  that  undoubtedly 
never  existed.  I  could  not  get  through  it,  though  it  is  all  the  rage 
with  multitudes  in  Germany.  But  this  evening  I  perceived  by  her 
conversation  that  she  must  be  the  Bettina,  whose  other  name  I  did 
not  know,  and  I  told  her  so  .....  It  is  generally  understood  that 
Goethe  had  taste  enough  to  be  very  little  pleased  with  the  senti 
mental  and  indecent  nonsense  of  this  lady's  correspondence,  though  it  ' 
was  full  of  the  most  violent  admiration  and  adoration  of  himself. 
Few  of  his  letters  appear,  and  they  are  very  cool  in  their  tone.  Mad. 
d'Arnheim  was  the  mother  of  two  or  three  full-grown  children  when 
she  composed  all  this  nauseous  galimatias. 

May  27.  —  This  morning,  early,  Humboldt  sent  me  a  truly  courtly 
note,  to  say  that  he  had  made  arrangements  to  have  certain  col 
lections  opened  for  us  to  see,  —  not  forgetting,  however,  at  the  end 
of  all  his  courtliness,  to  give  a  cut  at  M.  Ancillon,  —  and  at  eleven 
o'clock  he  came  in  his  carriage  to  take  us  to  see  them.  First,  he 
carried  us  to  the  Bau-Akademie,  —  the  Academy  of  Architecture,  an 
institution  which  has  been  arranged  and  formed  by  the  King  to  suit 
Schinkel  ..... 

From  the  Academy  of  Architecture,  M.  de  Humboldt  carried  us 
to  the  University,  a  large  and  massive  palace,  built  by  Frederic  II. 
for  his  brother  Henry,  1757-64,  and  given  by  the  present  King  for 
purposes  of  knowledge.  His  object  was  to  show  us  the  collections  in 


M.  44.]  ALEXANDER  VON  HUMBOLDT.  501 

mineralogy,  geology,  and  zoology In  the  collections  of  zoology 

we  found  Professor  Lichtenstein,  the  well-known  traveller,  who  spent 
six  years  at  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope,  "  when  it  was  little  better,  "as 
Humboldt  said,  "  than  a  menagerie."  I  saw  him  here  twenty  years 
ago,  and  he  was  then,  as  he  is  now,  pleasant  and  obliging,  with  much 
the  air  and  bearing  of  a  man  of  the  world.  He  carried  Us,  I  think, 
through  sixteen  halls,  all  of  them  respectable  in  their  appearance, 
but  the  halls  of  birds  really  wonderful.  Here  Humboldt  left  us,  to 
keep  an  appointment  at  the  palace,  reminding  us  that  we  should 
meet  at  dinner 

One  thing  struck  me  very  much  this  morning ;  I  mean  the  great 
deference  shown  everywhere  to  M.  de  Humboldt.  Our  valet-de-place 
and  the  people  of  the  inn  where  we  lodge,  look  upon  us  as  quite 
different  persons,  I  am  sure,  since  he  has  chaperoned  us  ;  and  nothing 
could  exceed  the  bows  and  the  "  excellencies "  with  which  he  was 
received  everywhere.  Even  the  three  professors  had  put  on  their 
best  coats  and  their  orders  of  merit  to  receive  him,  and  though  they 
showed  no  sort  of  obsequiousness  to  him,  they  treated  him  with  a 
consideration  and  distinction  not  to  be  mistaken.  This  is  partly 
owing  to  his  personal  claims  and  character,  but  partly,  also,  to  his 
immediate  and  intimate  relations  with  the  King. 

We  met  him  again  at  dinner,  at  Lord  William  Russell's,  where 
were  also  Mr.  Wheaton,  the  Baron  von  Munchhausen,  the  Hano 
verian  Minister,  Sir  George  Hamilton,  Lord  Fitzgerald,  and  a  young 
Englishman.  The  conversation  was,  of  course,  chiefly  in  Humboldt's 
hands,  who  talks  with  incredible  volubility  both  in  French  and  Eng 
lish,  and  seems  to  talk  equally  well  upon  all  subjects  ;  always,  how 
ever,  I  suspect,  with  a  little  indulgence  of  sarcasm  towards  indi 
viduals  he  does  not  approve.  He  was  very  amusing  to-day,  and 
very  instructive  too  ;  for  knowledge,  facts,  hints,  seem  to  crowd  and 
struggle  for  utterance  the  moment  he  opens  his  mouth.  I  am  sorry 
to  think  we  shall  hardly  see  him  again. 

May  28.  —  The  morning  was  occupied  in  visiting  to  take  leave, 
and  in  making  preparations  for  our  departure  to-morrow.  I  dined 
with  M.  Ancillon,  who  had  a  little  more  the  air  of  a  minister  to-day 
than  when  I  saw  him  on  two  former  occasions.  Mr.  Wheaton  dined 
there  ;  Count  Raczynski ;  Baron  Miltitz,  formerly  Prussian  Minister 
at  Constantinople  ;  Brassier,  the  present  Secretary  of  Legation  at 
Paris  ;  De  Bresson,  a  member  of  the  French  Chamber  of  Deputies  ; 
and  two  or  three  others  whom  I  did  not  know.  The  dinner  was 
truly  exquisite,  and  the  attendance  as  exact  as  possible M. 


502  LIFE  OP  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1836. 

Ancillon  is  so  wisely  aware  of  his  position  that  he  has  refused  a  pat 
ent  of  nobility,  and  makes  as  little  pretension  as  possible,  so  as  to 
excite  as  little  ill-will  as  he  can  ;  but  he  is  a  thorough  absolutist  in 
his  politics,  and  showed  it  to-day. 

I  amused  myself  by  asking  him  how  it  happened  that  in  the 
Staatszeitung,  —  the  official  paper,  —  this  morning,  a  compliment  to 
Von  Eaumer  was  omitted,  when  the  whole  of  the  rest  of  a  speech 
of  Lord  John  Russell,  in  which  the  compliment  was  contained,  was 
translated  and  printed.  He  replied  merely  that  he  could  not  im 
agine  ;  but  everybody  at  table  knew,  as  well  as  I  did,  that  it  was 
because  the  government  does  not  like  to  have  so  liberal  a  man  as 
Von  Rauiner  so  much  distinguished.  In  the  conversation  that  fol 
lowed  he  was  bitter  upon  the  "  Travels  in  England  "  ;*  when  I  men 
tioned  Humboldt,  he  gave  him,  too,  en  passant,  a  coup  de  langue,  as 
I  anticipated  ;  abused  Varnhagen's  book,  and  his  character  of  Gentz 
in  particular  ;  and,  in  short,  was  a  thorough  Tory  all  round.  Of  the 
ten  persons  at  table,  however,  three  or  four  of  us  were  not  at  all  of 
his  mind,  so  that  every  now  and  then  there  came  a  little  more 

vivacity  into  the  conversation  than  might  have  been  expected 

On  the  whole,  I  did  not  like  M.  Ancillon.  He  did  not  strike  me  as 
possessing  a  mind  of  a  high  order,  or  as  having  an  elevated  or  noble 
character.  He  may  be  a  good  man  for  every-day  affairs,  and  get 
along  well  enough  where  no  emergency  requires  boldness  or  a  wide 
and  wise  circumspection,  and  he  is  certainly  a  most  agreeable  talker 
and  makes  admirable  phrases ;  but  that,  I  suspect,  is  all.  Such  as  he 
is,  however,  much  of  the  destiny  of  Prussia  may  be  in  his  hands  ;  for 
he  has  not  only  the  confidence  of  the  King,  but  owes  his  present 
place  to  the  regard  of  his  former  pupil,  the  Prince  Royal.  And  the 
destinies  of  Prussia  are  important,  indeed,  for  all  Germany  and  for  all 
Europe 

The  King  has  been  on  the  throne  almost  forty  years  ;  he  has  done 
and  suffered  a  great  deal  with  his  people  and  for  his  people,  and  they, 
on  their  side,  have  a  great  love  for  him,  and  a  well-founded  trust  in 
his  honesty,  his  regard  for  justice,  his  irreproachable  private  charac 
ter,  and  his  good  intentions.  While  he  lives,  therefore,  I  think  there 
will  be  no  movement.  But  he  is  now  sixty-six  years  old,  and  men  are 
already  anxiously  inquiring  whether  his  successor  will  not  give  them 
the  representative  forms  enjoyed  in  Saxony,  Bavaria,  and  elsewhere 
in  Germany.  And  how  can  it  be  otherwise  ]  The  whole  training  of 
the  Prussian  people  for  above  five-and-twenty  years  has  been  fitting 

*  Von  Raumer's. 


M.  44.]  CHANGES  IN  PRUSSIA.  503 

them  for  a  freer  government.  When  Scharnhorst  provided  for  making 
every  man  in  the  country  a  soldier,  he  provided  the  first  element  of 
public  freedom,  in  the  sense  of  personal  power  and  rights  which  his 
system  necessarily  gave  to  every  individual.  When  Stein  gave  the 
inhabitants  of  the  cities  the  corporate  privilege  of  electing  their  own 
municipal  officers  and  transacting  their  own  affairs,  the  whole  country 
was  shown  how  political  rights  might  be  used  and  exercised ;  and 
when  universal  education,  by  really  effective  schools,  was  added  to 
both,  it  seems  as  if  the  last  needed  ingredient  was  added  to  the  popu 
lar  character,  to  make  ready  the  ways  that  lead  to  change.  I  think, 
therefore,  the  change  will  come  when  the  affection  and  respect  felt 
for  the  present  King  no  longer  stand  in  the  way  of  it.  His  successor 
is  said  to  be  less  inclined  to  a  liberal  system  than  his  father,  and  the 
tutor  and  favorite  Minister  of  the  Prince,  M.  Ancillon,  is  known  to 
be  less  so  ;  but  I  think  they  must  yield  to  the  spirit  of  the  times,  or 
become  its  victims. 

In  Berlin  there  is  a  life  and  movement  very  striking  to  one  who 
has  just  come,  as  we  have,  from  the  quietness  of  Dresden.  Its  exter 
nal  appearance  is  greatly  changed  since  I  was  here  about  twenty 
years  ago,  when  only  a  year  had  elapsed  from  the  battle  of  Waterloo, 
and  Prussia  was  but  just  beginning  to  feel  the  effects  of  her  renewed 
strength  and  increased  resources 

Of  the  society  of  Berlin,  of  course,  I  saw,  properly  speaking,  noth 
ing What  I  saw  was  sharply  divided  into  two  great  political 

classes,  and  the  expression  of  opinion  on  both  sides  was  plain  and  free 
enough  in  conversation  ;  but  the  censorship  of  books  is  severe,  and  the 
only  newspaper  printed  in  Berlin  that  is  readable  is  carefully  made 
up,  and  extremely  dull,  nothing  being  admitted  into  it  that  can  dis 
please  the  Ministry. 

A  long,  curious,  statistical  sketch  of  the  University  of  Berlin 
follows  these  remarks.  On  the  29th  May,  Mr.  Ticknor  and  his 
family  left  Berlin,  and  on  the  31st  reached  Dresden. 

As  we  drove  through  its  well-known,  friendly  streets,  it  seemed  as 
if  we  were  returning  to  a  home,  so  natural  and  cheerful  did  every 
thing  appear  to  us.  As  we  intended  only  to  pass  the  night  in  Dres 
den,  I  went  out  immediately  to  see  Tieck,  whom  I  had  promised  to 
see  again  on  our  way  to  Vienna.  By  chance  it  was  his  birthday,  and 
I  found  him  surrounded  by  a  large  party  of  his  friends,  many  of  whom 
I  knew  perfectly  well.  It  was  an  agreeable  surprise  to  me  to  be 


504  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1836. 

greeted  by  so  many,  once  more,  whom  I  had  not  thought  to  meet 
again.  Among  the  rest,  I  found  there  his  brother,  the  sculptor,  whom 
I  had  failed  to  see  at  his  atelier  in  Berlin,  —  a  grave  but  agreeable  per 
son,  younger,  I  suppose,  than  the  poet.  But  I  could  not  stop  long 
with  them,  ....  and  came  back  to  our  arrangements  for  leaving 
North  Germany. 

June  5.  —  We  left  the  Saxon  Switzerland  this  afternoon,  in  a  boat 
resembling  a  gondola  a  little,  managed  by  three  men,  of  whom  one 
steered,  and  the  two  others  drew  it  with  a  tow-rope,  at  the  rate  of 

about  three  miles  an  hour  up  the  Elbe The  mountains  on 

either  side  of  the  river,  during  the  fourteen  or  fifteen  miles  we 
passed  through  them  in  this  way,  are  grand  and  picturesque,  in  sev 
eral  parts  reminding  us  of  the  Highlands  on  the  North  River 

At  last,  just  as  the  mountains  began  to  subside  into  gentler  forms,  and 
become  covered  with  cultivation,  we  came  in  sight  of  Tetschen,  an 
enormous  mass  of  building,  standing  on  a  bold  rock  above  the  Elbe, 
with  a  corresponding  rock  still  bolder  on  the  other  side,  round  the 
bases  of  both  which  are  gathered  —  as  is  so  often  the  case  —  a  vil 
lage,  formed  at  first  for  protection,  but  now  thriving  with  industry 
and  trade.  Tetschen  is  called  a  castle,  and  has  been  built  at  dif 
ferent  times,  from  the  year  1000,  when  it  was  a  possession  of  the 
King  of  Bohemia,  down  to  the  last  century,  when,  about  1706,  the 
last  additions  were  made,  that  gave  it  its  present  vast  extent.  It  has, 
however,  nothing  military  in  its  character,  though  it  was  held  and 
fortified  as  a  military  position  by  the  Austrians  in  the  wars  both  of 
1809  and  1813. 

We  found  a  carriage  on  the  shore,  waiting  to  receive  us,  for  we  were 
coming  to  make  a  visit  to  the  family  at  the  castle,*  and  though  the 
time  of  our  arrival  was  uncertain,  something  in  the  look  of  our  boat 
made  them  suspect  who  it  was,  and  induced  them  to  send  kindly  to 
meet  us.  The  passage  up  to  the  castle  was  winding,  partly  through 

*  In  the  early  spring,  when  forming  his  plans  for  summer  travel,  Mr.  Ticknor 
found  it  —  strange  to  say  —  by  no  means  easy  to  get  information  about  the 
routes  through  Austria,  especially  for  Upper  Austria  and  the  Stelvio  Pass  into 
Italy.  He  was  referred  for  such  inquiries  to  Count  von  Thun-Hohenstein,  who 
frequently  came  to  Dresden,  and  on  whom  Mr.  Tickuor  called  when  next  he 
arrived.  The  Count  showed  the  utmost  kindness  in  answering  all  questions, 
and,  before  the  interview  ended,  invited  Mr.  Ticknor  to  bring  all  his  family  for 
a  visit  to  Tetschen  ;  the  party  then  including  —  besides  the  children  and  three 
servants  —  a  German  landscape-painter,  Hen-  Sparmann,  whom  Mr.  Ticknor  had 
engaged  to  travel  with  him  for  three  months  as  a  teacher.  Mr.  Ticknor  accepted 
the  invitation  as  cordially  as  it  was  given. 


JR.  44.]  COUNT  AND  COUNTESS  THUN.  505 

a  sort  of  park  full  of  fine  old  trees  ;  but  the  last  part  of  the  way  the 
hoofs  of  the  horses  rung  on  the  solid  rock  that  forms  the  foundations 
of  the  castle  itself.  Driving  under  a  large  and  imposing  portal,  we 
entered  the  vast  court  round  which  the  castle  extends,  and  at  the  far 
ther  end  of  it  were  kindly  welcomed  by  the  Count  and  Countess 
Thun,  at  the  bottom  of  the  grand  staircase.  They  led  us  up,  and 
carried  us  at  once  to  the  suite  of  apartments  destined  for  our  use  ;  but 
it  seemed  as  if  we  never  should  reach  them,  so  long  were  we  passing 
through  an  arched  passage-way  of  stone,  ornamented  on  one  side,  op 
posite  to  the  windows,  with  a  series  of  antlers  of  stags,  fitted  to  carved 
wooden  heads,  with  an  inscription  signifying  by  whom  each  had  been 
killed,  and  in  what  year.  At  last  we  reached  our  rooms,  four  in  num 
ber,  and  corresponding  —  especially  in  the  huge  size  of  the  largest  — 
to  the  rest  of  the  character  of  the  castle,  and  fitted  up  most  comfort 
ably.  Our  host  and  hostess  remained  with  us  a  few  minutes,  till  we 
were  quite  installed,  and  then  left  us  to  dress.  The  whole  was  done 
with  great  elegance  and  courtesy 

The  Count  is,  I  suppose,  a  little  over  fifty  years  old,  a  tall,  quiet, 
dignified-looking  man,  who  talks  but  little.  His  title  is  Count  von. 
Thun-Hohenstein,  and  his  family,  originally  the  Lords  of  Thun,  in 
Switzerland,  from  the  twelfth  century,  has  been  settled  in  this  castle 
since  1620.  The  Countess  is  of  the  Briihl  family,  descended  from 
the  great  minister.  She  is  obviously  a  sensible,  affectionate,  excellent 
woman. 

They  have  five  children,  —  three  sons  and  two  daughters.  The 
eldest  —  Count  Francis — lives  at  home  and  takes  care  of  the  estate; 
a  truly  agreeable,  natural,  frank  young  man  of  about  seven-and- 
twenty,  with  a  good  deal  of  talent,  much  accomplished  in  the  arts, 
and  otherwise  thoroughly  educated.  The  second  son  [Count  Freder 
ick]  is  in  Vienna ;  and  the  third  [Count  Leo],  about  twenty-four  years 
old,  has  a  place  in  the  government  at  Prague,  lives  there  chiefly,  and 
manages  another  great  estate  of  the  family  in  that  neighborhood. 
Both  of  them,  as  I  was  told  in  Dresden,  are  rather  uncommon  per 
sons  ;  the  first  remarkable  for  his  knowledge  of  natural  history,  and 
the  youngest  for  his  diligence  in  his  profession,  —  which  is  the  law, 
—  and  for  the  wide,  philanthropic  views  which  he  has  expressed  in 
a  sensible  work  on  prison  discipline.  The  whole  family,  indeed,  is 
well  known  through  this  part  of  Germany  for  its  intelligence,  accom 
plishments,  and  excellent  character  ;  living  on  their  estates  generally 
the  whole  year,  and  doing  great  good  by  the  kindness  they  exercise 
and  the  spirit  of  improvement  they  diffuse.  They  are,  of  course, 

VOL.  i.  22 


506  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1836. 

Catholics,  but  they  are  —  though  very  religious  —  not  bigoted ;  have 
travelled  a  great  deal,  and  lived  in  England,  as  well  as  other  coun 
tries,  so  that,  among  their  other  accomplishments,  they  all  talk  good 
English 

We  joined  the  family  at  tea,  in  a  small,  pleasant  sort  of  boudoir, 
formed  in  the  projecting  tower  of  the  castle,  which  almost  overhangs 
the  Elbe,  commanding  very  grand  and  beautiful  views  up  and  down 
the  river.  The  conversation  was  very  agreeable.  Mr.  Noel,  an  Eng 
lishman  of  about  five-and-thirty,  quite  well  known  in  Austria  and 
Saxony  for  his  talents  and  philanthropy,  and  a  near  connection  of 
Lady  Byron,  is  an  inmate  of  the  family,  and  talks  extremely  well. 
He  is  a  great  admirer  of  Dr.  Channing,  as  is  also  Count  Leo,  the 
third  son  of  Count  Thun,  who  has  translated  the  Essay  on  Bonaparte, 
and  was  prevented  from  printing  it  only  by  the  publication  of  another 
translation.  It  is  a  curious  circumstance,  which  rendered  our  conver 
sation  more  interesting 

June  6.  —  The  castle  bell  rang  at  five  this  morning  for  prayers,  and 
again  for  mass  at  half  past  eight,  in  the  chapel  ;  but  it  was  at  such  a 
distance  from  our  apartments  that  I  took  it  for  a  bell  in  the  village. 
When  I  went  to  breakfast  I  was  curious  to  measure  the  length  of  that 
portion  of  the  grand,  cloistered  passage  through  which  we  pass,  and 
I  found  it  between  one  hundred  and  fifty  and  one  hundred  and  sixty 
paces,  ....  so  that  some  estimate  may  be  made  from  this  of  the 
vast  size  of  the  outside  of  the  castle,  as  this  constitutes  only  about 

one  third  of  the  length  of  the  inner  wall  on  the  court The 

breakfast  was  unceremonious,  and  after  it  we  all  went  to  our  rooms, 
the  Count  and  Countess  telling  us  they  should  come  to  us  presently 
to  fetch  us  for  a  walk.  They  came  quite  soon,  and  we  went  with 
them  over  the  grounds  nearest  the  castle.  They  are  very  ample, 
and  laid  out  in  gardens,  with  hot-houses,  etc.,  and  a  park,  with  fine 
shaded  walks,  old  trees,  fancy  temples,  and  other  buildings  for  shel 
ter  and  ornament.  It  is  all  very  grand,  and  suits  the  nobleness  of 
the  whole  establishment 

Dinner  was  served  punctually  at  two,  and  was  very  delicate  and 

rich,  but  served  with  perfect  simplicity The  whole  lasted  only 

a  little  more  than  an  hour,  after  which  we  went  to  the  room  in  the 
tower,  where  the  ladies  prepared  and  served  the  coffee.  One  or  two 
things  reminded  us  rather  picturesquely  of  the  country  we  are  in 
and  its  usages.  Before  any  one  sat  down  at  table  there  was  an 
instant's  pause,  as  if  for  prayer  ;  the  Count,  as  the  feudal  head  of  the 
family,  was  served  before  the  Countess,  but  not  till  after  his  guests  ; 


M.  44.]  SCHLOSS  TETSCHEN.  507 

after  dinner  they  all  rose,  crossed  themselves,  and  stood  an  instant,  as 
if  to  return  thanks  ;  and  when  we  had  come  into  the  room  where  we 
took  coffee,  the  family  kissed  one  another  and  bowed  to  us 

Later  in  the  afternoon  we  crossed  the  river,  and  immediately  began, 
to  ascend  the  steep  side  of  the  mountain  opposite,  on  which  the  Count 
has  had  pleasant  and  convenient  paths  cut  for  several  miles,  with 
seats  and  arbors  for  rest,  and  for  enjoying  the  views,  which  are  con 
stantly  opening  with  great  variety  and  beauty,  up  and  down  the 
Elbe.  The  ladies  went  only  part  of  the  way  to  the  top,  and  then, 
returning  by  a  different  path,  found  carriages  that  took  them  across 
the  river  [in  boats].  We  went  quite  up,  and  enjoyed  magnificent 
prospects.  We  passed  through  the  deer-park,  —  or  a  portion  of  it,  — 
through  several  plantations  of  trees  of  different  sorts,  and  saw  some 
of  the  arrangements  of  so  large  an  estate.  Everything  was  on  a  grand 
scale.  The  Herrschaft  or  Lordship  of  Tetschen,  which  extends  over 
both  sides  of  the  Elbe,  is  about  sixteen  English  miles  square,  com 
prising  eighteen  thousand  inhabitants.*  .  .  .  .  ' 

We  had  frequent  views  of  the  castle,  whose  enormous  size  struck  me 

more  and  more I  asked  the  Count  how  it  came  to  be  so  vast. 

He  said  that  anciently  the  magistrates  of  the  town  of  Tetschen,  who 
were  appointed  by  the  family,  had  their  right  of  residence  within  its 
walls,  and  that  when  he  came  into  possession,  in  1808,  he  found  five 
families,  with  their  servants  and  equipages,  regularly  established  in 

different  parts  of  it "  So,"  he  added,  "  I  built  them  houses  in 

the  town  which  were  so  much  better,  that  they  were  glad  to  ex 
change,  and  the  consequence  is  that  I  have  a  larger  castle  than  I  want. 
However,  it  is  full  a  good  many  times  every  year."  This  I  knew 
already,  for  they  are  very  hospitable.  Last  year  the  Emperor  and 
Empress  of  Austria,  the  Emperor  and  Empress  of  Kussia,  the  King 
of  Prussia,  and  the  Crown  Prince,  with  Metternich,  etc.,  came  over 
from  Toplitz  and  made  a  visit,  so  that  at  one  time  they  had  forty  per 
sons  in  the  castle,  no  one  of  whom  was  below  the  rank  of  Prince. 
....  Our  walk  lasted  between  four  and  five  hours,  so  that  we  did 
not  reach  the  castle  till  half  past  eight  o'clock,  which,  however,  was 
but  just  after  sundown 

*  Mr.  Ticknor  says  :  "The  family  owns  a  still  larger  estate  near  Prague,  and 
two  other  possessions  elsewhere,  so  that  it  is  very  rich.  Everything  [about 
Tetschen]  looked  rich  and  flourishing  ;  cotton  manufactories  have  been  estab 
lished,  potteries,  etc.,  and  the  town  within  twenty  years  had  nearly  doubled  its 
population."  In  the  wars  against  Bonaparte,  this  Count  Thun,  then  a  young 
man,  raised  a  regiment  on  his  own  estates,  equipped  it,  offered  it  to  the  govern 
ment,  and  commanded  it  through  the  campaign  of  Wagram. 


508  LIFE  OF  GEORGE  TICKNOR.  [1836. 

June  7.  — .  .  .  .  After  breakfast  this  morning  we  crossed  the  river 
with  the  two  Counts,  and  went  to  see  a  pottery-ware  manufactory, 
established  and  carried  on  by  two  Saxons,  who  have  been  at  Avork 
here  ten  years,  and  in  that  time  have  increased  their  establishment 
from  two  hands  to  fifty.  The  ware  is  extremely  pretty,  ....  and 
the  family,  who  interest  themselves  very  much  in  all  that  goes  on  in 
the  neighborhood,  have  taken  care  to  furnish  the  enterprising  manu 
facturers  with  good  models,  both  ancient  and  modern,  so  that  almost 
all  their  forms  are  graceful.  I  was  surprised  to  find  that  they  had 
constantly  large  orders  from  New  York ;  for  instance,  for  one  form 
of  a  vase  for  flowers  they  have  now  an  order  for  three  hundred 
dozen. 

After  dinner  and  coffee,  a  party  up  the  river  was  proposed.  I  set 
out  with  the  gentlemen  on  foot,  the  ladies  followed  in  carriages,  and 
we  met  about  a  mile  or  two  off,  at  the  pheasantry,  a  large  piece  of 
enclosed  territory  appropriated  to  rearing  and  preserving  these  birds 
for  the  family  use,  and  having  houses  to  accommodate  the  attendants. 
....  We  came  down  by  a  very  pretty  church  to  the  river-side,  .... 
where  we  found  a  gondola  waiting  for  us,  in  which  we  had  a  delicious 
passage,  partly  rowing,  partly  floating,  through  beautiful  scenery,  back 
to  the  castle 

June  8.  —  Yesterday  morning  the  family  came  to  our  apartments 
and  invited  us  to  see  the  side  of  the  castle  where  they  live  in  win 
ter.  It  was  like  a  separate  establishment  of  dining-rooms,  saloons, 
etc.,  and  near  it  were  the  private  apartments  of  the  Count  and 
Countess,  with  their  daughters,  including  his  private  library  of 
three  or  four  thousand  volumes  ;  separate  sitting-rooms  for  each, 

and  so  on,  all  very  nice  and  comfortable The  great  library 

is  near,  just  fitting  up,  with  about  fifteen  thousand  volumes,  brought 
from  different  parts  of  the  castle,  —  a  grand  room,  well  suited  to  its 
purposes. 

This  morning  they  took  us  to  the  other  side  of  the  pile,  where  we 
passed  through  the  billiard-room,  and  I  know  not  how  many  suites  of 
apartments  for  guests,  to  the  chapel,  capable  of  containing  about  three 
hundred  persons,  besides  the  gallery  for  the  family,  and  where  mass 
is  performed  every  day,  prayers  chanted  at  morning,  .noon,  and  night, 
and  the  regular  service  on  Sundays.  On  this  side  of  the  castle  is  a 
third  dining-room,  with  antechambers,  etc.,  where  they  dine  in  the 
hottest  weather.  .... 

But  there  must  be  an  end  to  all  things,  and  the  time  had  now  come 
when  our  visit  must  be  closed.  At  about  eleven  o'clock,  therefore, 


2E.  44.]  PRAGUE.  509 

....  we  were  going  to  take  our  leave  ;  but  the  family  in  a  body 
insisted  upon  seeing  us  off,  and,  walking  through  their  beautiful  gar 
dens,  crossed  the  river  with  us,  and  parted  from  us  most  kindly, 
following  us  with  waving  of  caps  and  handkerchiefs  till  the  turn  of 
the  road  carried  us  out  of  sight 

June  12. — We  have  travelled  to-day  twelve  German  miles,  from 
Liebkovitz  to  Prague,  and  all  the  way  have  felt  that  we  were  really 
in  Bohemia We  have  been  in  the  midst  of  a  Sclavic  popula 
tion,  we  have  heard  Bohemian  constantly  talked,  and  have  found  all 
the  public  notices  posted  regularly  in  both  languages.  The  greater 
part  of  the  way  the  country,  though  highly  cultivated,  was  uninterest 
ing  ;  we  passed  for  miles  through  monotonous  fields  of  waving  corn, 
....  passing,  as  it  were,  over  a  vast  prairie.  From  Schlan  to  Prague 
we  rose  a  good  deal,  and  on  the  top  of  the  eminence  looked  down 
upon  the  capital  of  Bohemia,  stretching  up  and  down  both  sides  of 
the  Moldau.  It  is  certainly  one  of  the  most  picturesque  cities  I  have 
ever  seen,  .standing  on  five  hills,  with  great  masses  of  buildings  in 
every  direction,  broken  by  an  uncommon  number  of  old  steeples,  tow 
ers,  and  domes,  while  the  river,  crossed  by  its  ancient  and  highly 
ornamented  bridge,  sweeps  majestically  through  the  midst  of  the 
whole.  It  is  not  half  as  large  as  Berlin,  but  it  gives  the  idea  of  a 
great  deal  more  magnificence. 

June  13.  — Young  Count  Leo  Thun  came  to  see  us  this  morning. 
He  has  a  place  in  the  criminal  administration  of  the  government  here. 
....  He  seems  a  young  man  of  strong  character  and  great  love  of 
knowledge  and  progress,  has  much  Bohemian  nationality  about  him. 

He  offered  himself  to  show  us  Prague,  and  we  accepted  his 

kindness,  with  some  limitations 

This  morning  I  went  with  my  valet-de-place  to  see  the  quarter 
assigned  to  the  Jews,  where  they  have  lived  since  the  thirteenth  cen 
tury.  It  is  very  crowded,  dirty,  and  disagreeable  ;  for,  as  they  are  not 
allowed  to  live  anywhere  else,  and  have  constantly  been  increasing, 
they  have  become  packed  together  in  an  extraordinary  manner.  Their 
burial-ground  is  curious,  with  its  heavy  gravestones,  covered  with  long 
Hebrew  inscriptions,  but  it  is  even  more  crowded  with  the  dead  than 
their  streets  are  with  the  living.  The  stones  almost  constantly  touch 
each  other,  so  that  if  as  many  have  been  buried  here  as  are  indicated, 
they  must  rest  in  tiers,  one  above  the  other.  Yet  the  whole  room  is 
by  no  means  filled  ;  for  when  Joseph  II.  forbade  burial  within  the 
limits  of  the  cities,  there  was  still  space  left  here,  so  that  the  crowd 
ing  must  have  been  from  economy,  not  from  necessity.  Their  syna- 


510  LIFE  OP  GEOKGE  TICKNOR.  [1836. 

gogue  was  not  curious ;  I  mean  the  principal  one,  which  I  saw,  for 
they  have  nine. 

In  the  afternoon  we  drove  out  with  Count  Thun  to  see  the  city 

and  a  little  of  its  environs On  our  return  we  passed  by  the 

enormous  palace  where  Wallenstein  lived  during  the  interval  of  his 
loss  of  the  Emperor's  favor,  when  —  as  I  think  Schiller  relates  —  he 
pulled  down  the  houses  in  the  neighborhood  to  have  free  room,  and 
stretched  chains  across  the  streets  to  keep  quiet,  affecting  to  be  served 
only  by  nobles,  and  maintaining  more  than  imperial  forms  and  cere 
monies.  The  estate  still  exists,  of  enormous  extent,  and  the  square 

before  it  is  still  called  Waldstein's  Square The  palace  belongs 

to  a  descendant  of  his  brother,  but  not  the  same  one  who  lives  at 
Dux. 

June  15.  — .  .  .  .  I  passed  a  considerable  part  of  my  morning  in 
what  is  called  the  Collegium  Clementinum,  or,  really,  the  buildings 
of  the  University.  It  is  like  a  city  within  a  city,  so  wide  do  its 
squares  and  courts  extend.  It  was  originally  a  great  establishment 
of  the  Jesuits,  and  is  built  in  the  fine  style  of  architecture  they 
adopted  in  all  such  cases 

The  library  contains  about  ninety-three  thousand  volumes,  a  beg 
garly  matter  for  such  an  institution  ;  and,  what  is  worse,  they  looked 
as  if  they  belonged  to  the  studies  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth 
centuries,  rather  than  to  those  of  the  nineteenth.  One  or  two  of  the 
manuscripts  interested  me  very  much.  The  records  of  John  Huss's 
Eectorship  of  the  University,  written  in  his  own  hand,  and  a  copy  in 
his  own  hand,  also,  of  a  work  of  Thomas  Aquinas,  were  worth  going 
far  to  see.  I  was  shown,  too,  a  curious  book  for  the  service  of  the 
Church,  with  the  music  belonging  to  it,  splendidly  illustrated,  in 
which,  on  St.  John's  day,  is  a  special  service  in  honor  of  John  Huss, 
as  if  he  were  one  of  the  saints  of  the  Church,  which,  in  fact,  he  was 
considered  here  in  the  sixteenth  century.  In  the  margin  are  three 
very  well  finished  miniatures,  —  the  tipper  one,  Wickliffe  striking  fire 
with  a  steel  and  flint,  and  endeavoring  in  vain  to  blow  it  to  a  flame  ; 
the  middle  one,  Huss  lighting  a  candle  at  the  spark ;  and,  below, 
Luther  bearing  a  blazing  torch. 

The  manuscript,  therefore,  belongs  to  the  sixteenth  century,  and 
shows  much  of  the  confused  state  of  religious  opinion  and  party  in 
Bohemia  from  the  time  of  the  Utraquists'  to  the  Thirty  Years'  War. 
Indeed,  in  several  parts  of  this  mamiscript  Huss  is  called  "  Divus 
Johannes  Huss,"  as  if  he  were  regularly  canonized. 

In  the  afternoon  we  drove  to  the  Hradschin,  visited  anew  the 


^E.44.]  PRAGUE.  511 

cathedral,  walked  in  the  Volksgarten,  and  enjoyed  the  fine  views 
of  the  palace  and  the  magnificent  views  of  the  city  itself,  with  its 
hills,  its  towers  and  domes,  and  its  grand  masses  of  old  buildings  ; 
went  to  the  Bubensch  Gardens,  where  we  drove  about  some  time,  and 
came  back  to  the  city  by  Wallenstein's  Square  and  Palace.* 

*  Prague  was  then  comparatively  seldom  visited,  and  the  Journal  contains 
full  descriptions  and  historical  memoranda  of  its  peculiarities,  but  these  have, 
of  course,  greatly  lost  their  interest. 


INDEX  TO  VOL.  I 


ABBOTSFORD,  282-284. 

Abbott,  Jacob,  405. 

Ackerbaldt,  J.  D  ,  179. 

Adair,  Right  Hon.  Sir  Robert,  269. 

Adams,  Hon.  Charles  Francis,  459. 

Adams,  J.,  President  of  the  United  States, 

12, 13,  30,  330,  339 ;  death  of,  37" ;  eulogy 

OD,  by  Webster,  378. 
Adams,  Mrs.  J.,  13. 
Adams,  J.  Q.,  President  of  the  United  States, 

12,49,  54,  339,  349,  409,  459. 
Adams,  Mrs.  J.  Q.,  349. 
Addington,  Mr.,  350,  411. 
Agassiz,  Louis,  421  and  note. 
Aiken,  Charles,  416. 
Alba,  Count  d',  248,  249. 
Albani,  Cardinal,  181. 
Albany,  Countess  of,  183, 184. 
Aldobrandini,  Princess,  256  and  note.     See 

Borghese,  Princess. 
Alfieri  Vittorio,  184. 
Alhambra,  230,  231,  232  and  note. 
Alison,  Dr.,  427. 
Alison,  Mrs.,  426,  427. 
Alison,  Rev.  Dr.,  280, 414. 
Allen.  John,  265,  408. 
Allston,  Washington,  316  and  note,  388. 
Almack's,  296,  412,  413. 
American  Institute,  G  T.  lectures  before,  393. 
Amiens,  Bishop  of,  254. 
Amsterdam,  visits,  69. 
Ancillon,  J.  P.  F.,  496,  497,  499-503. 
Ancona,  visits,  167. 
Anderson,  Dr.,  274,  275,  280. 
Anglona,  Prince  of,  207. 
Anhalt-Dessau,  Duchess  of,  479  and  note. 
Anthology  Club,  G.  T.  member  of,  9. 
Aranjuez,  195,  220-222. 
Arconati,  Madame.  450,  451. 
Arconati,  Marquis,  450  -  452. 
Arnheim,  Baroness  von  (Bettina),  500. 
Arrivabene,  Count  Giovanni,  450,  451. 
Astor,  W.  B.,  26,178. 
Athenaeum,  Boston,  8, 12,  370,  371,  379  and 

note. 


Atterson,  Miss,  109. 
Auckland,  Lord  (First),  264. 
Austin,  Mrs.  Sarah,  411,  413,  500. 
Azzelini,  176. 

BABBAGE,  CHARLES,  407,  422. 

Bachi,  Pietro,  368  note. 

Bagot,  Sir  Charles  and  Lady  Mary,  295  and 

note. 

Baillie,  Miss  Joanna,  413,  414,  479. 
Bainbridge,  Commodore,  373. 
Bakd,  Sir  David,  412,  413. 
Balbo,  Count  Cesare,  210,  212,  213,  306,  307 ; 

letters  from,  307,  309. 
Balbo,  Countess,  209. 
Balbo,  Count  Prospero,  209,  210,  308. 
Balhorn,  Herr,  85. 
Baltimore,  visits,  41,  349,  351. 
Bancroft,  Hon.  George,  385. 
Banks,  Sir  Joseph,  258  note,  263,  294. 
Barante,  Baron  de,  137, 138,  256. 
Barbour,  Philip,  347. 
Barcelona,  visits,  185, 191. 
Baring,  Bingham,  411. 
Baring,  Thomas,  411. 
Barnard,  Mr.,  459. 
Baudissin,  Count,  467,  468,  473  and  note, 

475,  476,  482,  491. 
Baudissin ,  Countess,  467. 
Bauer,  Mademoiselle,  469,  478  and  note. 
Bavaria,  Crown  Prince  of  (Ludwig  I. ),  177. 
Beaumont,  Gustave  de,  421. 
Beauvillers,  M.,  122. 
Beck,  Dr.,  Professor  at  Harvard  College,  351, 

352. 

Beck,  Professor,  108. 
Beckford,  William,  246  and  note. 
Bedford,  Sixth  Duke  of,  268-270. 
Belem  Church  and  Convent,  244. 
Bell,  J.,  248,  249. 
Bell,  John,  173, 174, 180. 
Bell,  Joseph,  7. 
Benci,174. 

Benecke,  Professor,  70,  76,  79,  82. 
Berchet,  Giovanni,  450. 


514 


INDEX. 


Berg,  President  von,  122. 

Berlin ,  visits,  109,  493-503. 

Bernard,  General,  350. 

Bertrand,  Favre,  153, 155. 

Bigelow,  Dr.  Jacob,  12,  316  note,  319. 

Bigelow,  Timothy,  13. 

Blake,  George,  20. 

Bligh,  President,  372. 

Blumenbach,  Madame,  103. 

Blumenbach,  Professor,  70,  71,  80,  85,  94, 
103-105,121. 

Blumner,  Madame  de,  481. 

Bohl  von  Faber,  236  and  note. 

Bologna,  visits,  166. 

Bombelles,  Count  H.,  246,  247. 

Bonaparte,  Christine  (Countess  Poss6),  182, 
183  note,  446. 

Bonaparte,  Emperor  Napoleon  I.,  return  from 
Elba,  49  ;  Dr.  Parr  on,  50  ;  Byron's  feel 
ing  for,  60  ;  anecdotes  of,  61, 123. 

Bonaparte,  Jerome,  King  of  Westphalia,  83, 
84,  111. 

Bonaparte,  Letizia  i  Madame  Mere),  181. 

Bonaparte,  Louis,  181. 

Bonaparte,  Lucien,  181, 182. 

Bonaparte,  Madame  Lucien,  182, 183. 

Bonaparte,  Pauline.     See  Borghese. 

Bonstetten,  Baron  de,  153, 156, 157, 164, 470 
note. 

Borghese,  Pauline  Bonaparte,  Princess,  181. 

Borgieri,  162. 

Bose,  Comtesse,  467. 

Bose,  Count,  459. 

Bo?e,  Countess,  459,  476. 

Bostock,  Dr.,  416. 

Boston,  G  T.,  born  in ,  1 ;  condition  of,  1800  - 
1815,  17-21;  town-meetings,  20 ;  com 
parison  with  Athens,  20;  in  1819,  315, 
316  and  note. 

Boston  Provident  Institution  for  Savings, 
G.  T.  Trustee  of,  379  note. 

Boswell,  James,  53,  55. 

Boswell,  Junior,  58. 

Botta,  C.  G.  G.,  164.        v 

Bbttiger,  K   A.,  456,  457. 

Bowditch,  Dr.  Nathaniel,  316,  371,  379,  391, 
405. 

Brandes,  C.  A.,  178. 

Brassier,  M.,  501. 

Breme,  Marquis  de,  161, 164. 

Brisbane,  Sir  Thomas,  419,  422. 

British  Association  for  the  Advancement  of 
Science,  Fifth  Meeting  of.  419-424. 

Broglie,  Due  de,  128, 139, 151, 155,  253,  257 
note,  263,  312,  314. 

Broglie,  Duchesse  de,  128,131-133, 137, 138, 
151,152,257,314;  letter  from,  311. 

Brookline,  385. 

Brooks,  Edward,  154, 156, 158. 

Brosius,  Dr.,  11. 


Brougham,  Henry,  Lord,  266, 279. 
Brown,  Dr.,  280  and  note. 
Bruen,  Rev.  M.,  364  note. 
Bruess,  Countess,  154. 
Brussels,  visits,  450. 
Buckland,  Dr. ,  404  -  406. 
Buckminster,  Miss  Eliza,  331,  377  note. 
Buckminster,  Miss  Lucy,  9  and  note,  10. 
Buckminster,  Rev.  Joseph  S. ,  8, 9, 17  ;  death 

of ,  10  ;    G.  T.  in  charge  of  his  papers,  10 

note. 

Buller,  Mrs.,  411. 
Biilow,  Baron  Edouard  von,  462,  474,  475, 

479,  483,  489. 

Bunsen,  Carl  Josias,  177, 178. 
Burgess,  Sir  James  Bland,  60,  62. 
Burr,  Aaron,  Talleyrand's  opinion  of,  261. 
Bussierre,  Baron  de,  464,  470. 
Buttini,  Dr.,  154. 
Byron,  Lady,  60,63,66,  67,  68,  410  and  note, 

448. 
Byron, Lord, 54,  58, 59, 60, 62, 63, 64, 66 -  68 ; 

anecdote  of,  110, 114, 165,  166,  411,  446. 

CABALLERO  FERNAN,  pseud.,  236  note. 

Cabot,  George,  12,  13,  14,  396. 

Cadaval,  Duchess  de,  249. 

Cadiz,  193  ;  visits,  236. 

Calasanzios  Convent,  195. 

Calhoun,  John  C.,  349,  381. 

Cambridge,  England,  visits,  270,  271. 

Camoens,  244,  252. 

Campagna  of  Rome,  168. 

Campbell,  Sir  John,  245,  246. 

Campbell,  Thomas,  62,  63,  65,  282,  410. 

Canova,  Antonio,  172. 

Carroll,  Archbishop,  41. 

Carroll,  Charles,  41. 

Carus,  Dr.,  459.  473,  475,  482. 

Cassel,  visits,  121. 

Castel  Branco,  Baron.     See  Lacerda. 

Castro,  Don  Joao  de,  246. 

Chalmers,  Rev.  Dr.,  405. 

Chaloner,  Mr.,443. 

Channing,  Edward  T.,9, 12,  26;  letters  to, 

30,  42,  83,  89,  96, 107, 118, 183. 
Channing,  Dr.  Walter,  148,  391 ;  letters  to, 

94, 149. 

Channing,  Mrs.  Walter,  letters  to,  148, 188. 
Channing,  Rev.  William  E.,  17,  84,  96, 178, 

316,  327,  382,  391,  405,  479. 
Chapman,  Dr.,  16 
Charlottesville,  visits,  34,  348. 
Chastellux,  Count  de,  109. 
Chateaubriand,  Vte.  de,  137-140,  146,  254, 

255,  304  ;  Mad.  de,  355. 
Chauncey,  Commodore,  373. 
Cheverus,  Bishop,  18  note. 
Cheves,  Langdon,  350,  351. 
Chirk  Castle,  52. 


INDEX. 


515 


Cicognara,  Count,  163, 164, 166. 
Cintra,  245  -  247  ;  convention  of,  246. 
Circourt,  Count  Adolphe  de,  470  and  note, 

475  note,  482, 483,  485,  486. 
Circourt,  Countess  Anastasie  Klustine  de, 

470  and  note,  482,  483,  485,  486. 
Clare,  Lord,  422. 
Clay,  Henry,  350,  381. 
Clemencin,  Diego,  197. 
Clerk,  John,  277,  280. 
Cloncurry,  Lord,  422. 
Cogswell,  Joseph  Green,  116,  156,  173,  273, 

278  note,  282,  284,  285,  316  note,  318  and 

note,  332,  336,  385. 
Coleridge,  Mrs.  S.  T.,  285,  286. 
Coleridge,  Sara  T.  (Mrs.  Henry  N.),  285, 

286. 

Coles,  Miss,  29. 
Coles,  Secretary,  29. 
Colloredo,  Count,  484. 
Common  School  Journal  of  Connecticut,  2 

note. 

Conde,  Jose  Antonio,  187, 197. 
Confalonieri,  Count  Frederigo,  161  and  note, 

162,  164,  256,  450. 
Consalvi,  Cardinal,  180. 
Constant,  Benjamin,  131, 134, 138, 143, 145, 

152. 
Contrabandists,  journey  with,  from  Seville 

to  Lisbon,  241  et  neq  ,  243  note. 
Cooke,  G.  F.,'53  note,  127,  473. 
Copleston, Mr.,  405. 
Cordova,  visits,  224-228;  cathedral-mosque 

of,  224, 225 ;  hermits  of,  226,  227 ;  society 

in,  227,  228. 

Correa  de  Serra,  Abb£,  16  and  note. 
Cowper,  Countess,  408,  409,  412. 
Cowper,  Earl,  408. 
Crampton,  (Sir)  Philip,  420. 
Cranbourne,  Lord,  268. 
Cranston,  G.,  277. 
Craufurd,  Mr.,  270. 
Craufurd,  Sir  J.,  270. 
Craven,  Mr.,  175. 

Creighton,  Sir  Alexander,  421,  422. 
Creuzer,  G.  F.,  125. 
Crillon,  Due  de,  255. 
Cumming,  Sir  William,  176. 
Curran,  John  Philpot,  294. 
Curtis,  Augustus,  4. 
Curtis,  Benjamin,  first  husband  of  Mrs.  E. 

Ticknor,  3  ;  graduate  of  Harvard  College, 

3;  surgeon  in  Revolutionary  Army,  4  and 

note ;  physician  in  Boston,  4  ;  dies  young, 

4 ;  father  of  Mrs.  William  H.  Woodward, 

Benjamin,  Harriet,  and  Augustus  Curtis, 

grandfather  of  B.  R.  and  G.  T.  Curtis,  4. 
Curtis,  Benjamin,  son  of  Dr.  B.  C.  and  Mrs. 

Elizabeth  Billings  Curtis,  4. 
Curtis,  Benjamin  R.,  4. 


Curtis,  C.  P.,  316  note. 

Curtis,  EUfa,  wife  of  W.  H.  Woodward,  4, 7, 

276. 
Curtis,  George  Ticknor,  4,  317  ;  letter  to  G. 

S.  Hillard,  326,  391. 
Curtis,  Harriet,  4. 
Curtis,  Rev.  Philip,  3. 
Curtis,  T.  B.,  316  note. 
Custis,  Miss  Nellie  (Mrs.  Peter),  38. 
Cuvier,  Baron,  255. 

DAHL,  J.  C.  C.,  482,  490. 

Dallas's  Report,  30. 

Dalton,  Mr.,422. 

Dante,  study  of,  85,  86,  394,  466,  470,  472, 

475  and  note,  482. 

Dartmouth  College,  Elisha   Ticknor  grad 
uate  of,  1, 5 :  case  of,  vs.  Woodward,  4 ;  Dr. 

Wheelock,  President  of,  5  ;  G.  T.  member 

and  graduate  of,  6,  7. 
Daveis,  Charles  S.,  316  note  ;  letters  to,  24, 

43,  51,  87,  169,  232  note,  334,  336,  337, 

339,  344,  378,  379,  394,  396,  397,  398,  399, 

401. 

Davis,  Hart,  447. 
Davis,  Judge,  329,  340,  355. 
Davis,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  I.  P.,  328. 
Davis,  Mr.  Samuel,  329. 
Davoust,  Madame,  146, 147. 
Davoust,  Marechal,  146, 147. 
Davy,  Dr.,  271. 
Davy,  Lady,  57, 128. 

Davy,  Sir  Humphry,  54,  57,  60, 128, 152. 
Day,  Professor,  14. 

Deaf-Mutes,  teaching  of,  in  Madrid,  196. 
De  Bresson,  501. 
De  Candolle,  A.  P.  de,  154, 155. 
Decazes,  Count  (Duke),  253,  254,  256. 
Dela  Rive,  President,  152-154, 156. 
Denison,  Right  Hon.  Evelyn  (Lord  Ossing- 

ton),  408  note. 
De  Pradt,  257  and  note,  263. 
De  Saussure,  Mad  ,  153. 
De  Saussure,  Mad  Necker,  155  and  note. 
Devonshire,  Duchess  of,  177, 180,  255. 
Devrient,  Emil,  483. 
Dexter,  Samuel,  9,  10  note,  20,  39,  40,  41 

note. 

Dickerson,  Governor,  381. 
Dickinson,  Dr.,  412. 
Diederichstein,  Baroness,  471. 
D'Israeli,  T.,62. 

Dissen,  Professor,  70,  95, 115, 121. 
D'lvernois,  Sir  Francis,  153, 155. 
Don,  General  Sir  George,  235  and  note. 
Don  Quixote,  186,  223. 
Douglas,  Lady,  180. 
Downie,  Sir  John,  238,  240,  241. 
Downshire,   Dowager-Marchioness    of,  268, 

295,  296. 


516 


INDEX. 


Downshire,  Marquess  of,  296. 

Doyle,  Francis  Hastings,  447. 

Doyle,  Miss,  447. 

Doyle,  Sir  Francis,  442,  446,  447. 

Draveil  Chiteau,  visits,  146-148. 

Dresden  Gallery,  109,  468. 

Dresden,  visits,  109,  456-489. 

Drew,  Mrs.,  180. 

Dublin,  visits,  419. 

Dumont.M.,154,430. 

Dandas,  Dr.,  440,  444. 

Duras,  Due  de,  253. 

Duras,  Duchesse  de,  253,  254,  255  and  note, 

CC3,  2j8-2j3,  304. 
Duval,  Judge,  39. 
Dwight,  Miss  Anna,  398. 
D-.viglit,  Miss  Catherine,  death  of,  456. 

EBBIXGTOS,  VISCOBXT  AND  VISCOUNTESS,  269. 
Eckhardstein,  Baron,  177. 
Edgeworth,  Miss  Honora,  427. 
Edgeworth,  Miss  Maria,  letter  from,  388 ; 

opinion  of   Mr.   Ticknor,  392 ;    visit  to, 

426-432,446,458. 
Edgeworth,  Mrs.  E.  L.,  426,  427  and  note, 

428  ;  death  of,  432  note. 
Edgeworth,  Richard  Lovell,  427,  428,  430, 

431. 

Edgeworth  town,  visits,  426-432. 
Kdheljertha,  story  of,  331-333. 
Edinburgh,  visits,  273-282;  society  in,  276. 
Eichhorn,  Professor,  70,  76,  79,  80,  82,  84, 

95, 121. 

Einsiedel,  Count  and  Countess,  485. 
Elgin,  Seventh  Earl  of,  279. 
Eliot,  Miss  Anna,  334  and  note,  335  ;  also 

see  Ticknor,  Mrs.  Geo. 
Eliot,  Miss  Catherine.      See  Norton,  Mrs. 

Andrews. 

Eliot,  Mrs.  Samuel,  letter  to,  337. 
Eliot;  Samuel,  founder  of  Greek  Professor 
ship  at  Harvard  College,  335  and  note. 
Eliot,  Samuel  Atkins,  letters  to,  331,  340. 
Ellice,  Colonel,  279. 
Elliott,   author  of  "  Corn  Law    Rhymes," 

441. 

Elmsley,  Peter,  58  and  note. 
Emmett,  Thomas  Addis,  39,  40,  41  note. 
England,  visits,  49-68,  251,  263  -  272, 285  - 

298;  404-449. 
Eppes,  Mr.,  31. 
Ersch,  Professor,  111,  112. 
Erving,  George  W.,  186, 187, 188,  212. 
E«coiquiz,  Don  Juan,  219. 
Escorial,  195, 197,  214-216. 
Essex  Street,  Boston,  G.  T.'s  first  home  in, 

3  note,  4. 
Europe,  visits,  49-299;  second  time,  402  - 

511. 
Eustis,  Governor,  20. 


Everett,  Alexander  Hill,  11, 12,  316  and  note, 

345,  380,  459  note. 
Everett,  Edward,  12,  49,  68,  71,  77,  80,  84, 

121,  316  and  note. 
Everett,  Mrs.  A.  H.,  345. 

FALKENSTEIN,  Da.  CHARLES,  465, 475, 482. 

Falcke,  Hofrath,  124. 

Falmouth,  Tiscount,  412. 

"Family,  The  "  Club  at  Cambridge,  271. 

Farrar,  Professor  John,  332,  355. 

Fea,  C.,  179. 

Feder,  Professor,  77. 

Ferdinand  VII.,  King  of  Spain,   191,  206, 
212. 

Ferguson,  Doctor,  417. 
'  Fesch,  Cardinal,  181. 

Filipowicz,  Mad. ,  406. 

Fitzgerald,  Lord,  601. 

Fitzwilliam,  Third  Earl,  436,  437,  439-445. 

Flahault,  Count,  277. 

Flahault,  Countess,  277. 

Fletcher,  Miss,  279,  433and  note,  434. 

Fletcher,  Mrs.,  279  and  note,  433,  434. 

Florence,  visits,  183. 

Follen,  Dr.  Charles,  Professor  at  Harvard 
College,  351,  352,  338  note. 

Folsom,  Charles,  389,  390. 

Forbes,  Captain,  262. 

Forbes,  Hon.  Francis,  458, 459, 461, 463, 477, 
478,  486,  489. 

Forbin,  Count,  255,  257. 

Forster,  Hofrath  Friedrich,  493,  495. 

Fbrster,  Professor  Karl,  475,  482. 

Fox,  Colonel  C.  J.,  408. 

Fox,  Lady  Mary,  408,  409. 

Francisco,  Don,  Prince  of  Spain,  206. 

Frankfort-on-Main,  visits,  122. 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  286. 

Franklin,  Lady,  425. 

Franklin  Public  School,  Boston,  Elisha  Tick 
nor,  Principal  of,  2. 

Franklin,  Sir  John,  419,  420,  421,  422,  425. 

Freeman,  Rev.  Dr.  J.,  17,  35,  53. 

Frere,  John  Hookham,  264,  267. 

Frisbie,  Professor,  355,  356. 

Froriep,  L.  F.  von,  454,  455,  457. 

Fuller,  Captain,  61. 

Fulton's  Steam  Frigates,  27. 

Funchal,  Count,  177, 179,  263. 

GAGERX,  BAROX,  122, 123. 

Gallatin,  Albert,  142,  143, 144,  145,  252. 

Gallois,  J.  A.  C.,  143. 

Gannett,  Rev.  E.  S.,  notice  of  Mr.  Ticknor, 

327  and  note. 
Gans,  Professor,  494. 
Garay,  Don  M.  de,  191, 192, 196,  212. 
Gardiner,  Maine,  visits,  337,  385. 


INDEX. 


517 


Gardiner,  Mrs.  R.  H.,  letter  to,  395. 

Gardiner,  Rev.  J.  S.  J.,  8,  11. 

Gardiner,  R.  H.,  316  note,  337. 

Gaskell,  Mr.  and  Mrs.,  439. 

Gaston,  Mr.,  31. 

Gauss,  Professor,  70. 

Gell,  Sir  William,  175. 

Gener,  346. 

Geneva,  visits,  152-158. 

George  (IV.),  Prince  Regent,  67. 

Georgetown,  D.  C.,  visits,  28,  30,  38. 

German  language,  difficulty  of  studying  it, 

11,  25,  26 ;  high  and  low,  87. 
German  literature,  87-89, 118  - 120 ;  repub 
lic  of  letters,  99  - 102. 
German  metaphysics,  96  -  99. 
German  political  and  moral  state,  102, 103. 
German  universities,  75,  89,  90, 102. 
Gesenius,  W.,  111. 
Gibraltar,  visits,  235,  236. 
Gifford,  William,  58,  60,  62,  294. 
Gilbert,  Davies,  405. 
Giustiniani,  Prince,  Nuncio,  188,  193,  194 

note. 

Godwin,  Mrs.  William,  130,  294. 
Godwin,  William,  130,  294. 
Goethe,  Wolfgang  A.  von,  113  - 115, 165, 211, 

45J ,  490  note,  500. 
Goltz,  Count,  122T 
Gonzales,  librarian,  Madrid,  197. 
Gott,  Messrs.,  438. 
Gottingen,  11,  395;  G.  T.  arrives  at,  69 ;  life 

there,  70-107,  116-121;    description  of, 

74,  75  ;  leaves  there,  121. 
Gottingen  University,  70,  72,  75,   76,  82; 

during  the  French  War,  83,  84  ;  Literary 

Club,  85;  secret  societies,  90-93. 
Gourieff,  Count,  487. 
Graham,  Lady  James,  407. 
Grammont,  Duchesse  de,  257. 
Granada,  193 ;  visits,  228-232 ;  Archbishop  of, 

228,  229  and  note,  232  ;  Cathedral  of,  229. 
Grant,  Mrs.  Anne,  of  Laggan,  274,  278  and 

note,  279. 

Grassi,  Padre,  193  note. 
Graves,  Doctor,  420,  421. 
Gray,  Francis  Galley,  31, 318  and  note,  328, 

371. 

Gray,  Thomas,  285. 
Gregoire,  Count  Bishop,  130, 143. 
Grey,  Earl,  295,  408. 
Grey,  Sir  George,  411. 
Griffiths,  Professor,  419. 
Griscom,  Professor,  298. 
Grisi,  Giulia,  407,  413,  436. 
Grote,  George,  415. 
Guadiana  River,  222  and  note,  242. 
Guaiaqui,  Count,  217,  218. 
Guilford,  Lord,  175. 
Guizot,  Francois,  256,  314. 


HAASE,  482. 

Haileybury.     See  Mackintosh. 

Hale,  Nathan,  12. 

Hallam,  Henry,  58. 

Halle,  visits,  110. 

Hamilton,  Alexander,  Talleyrand's  opin 
ion  of,  261 ;  Washington's  letter  to,  261 
note. 

Hamilton,  Lady,  211. 

Hamilton,  Professor,  Sir  William  Rowan, 
420,  422,  423,  425  and  note. 

Hamilton,  Sir  George,  501. 

Hand,  Professor,  115 

Hanover,  N.  H.,  3  note,  4,  5,  6,  334,  385 
and  note  ;  Elisha  Ticknor  dies  there,  2, 
335. 

Hanover,  visits,  77. 

Harcourt,  Rev.  William  Vernon,  424,  435, 
436,  437. 

Hardenberg,  Prince,  485. 

Harness.  Rev.  William,  411,  416  note. 

Harper,  General  Robert,  351. 

Harrison,  George,  193  note 

Hartford  Convention,  12-14. 

Hartford,  visits,  14. 

Harvard  College,  G.  T.  nominated  to  a  Pro 
fessorship  in,  116;  accepts,  120;  enters 
on  Professorship,  319  -  326  ;  attempted  re 
forms  in ,  353  -  369,  379  399  -  401. 

Hatfield.     Ste  Salisbury. 

Hatton,  visits,  62. 

Haven,  Miss,  68. 

Haven,  N.  A.,  123  note,  316  note.  336,  337  ; 
letters  to,  23,  49,  68,  338,  354,  359 ;  let 
ter  from,  354  note,  377  note  ;  death  of, 
377 ;  memoir  of,  377,  380. 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  389. 

Hayne,  Colonel  Robert  Y. ,  351. 

Hazlitt,  William,  293,  294. 

Heber,  Richard,  264,  267. 

Heeren,  Professor,  80. 

Heidelberg,  visits,  124. 

Hercolani,  Prince,  166, 183. 

Herder,  Baron  von,  478. 

Herman,  Professor,  108, 112. 

Hertzberg,  Countess,  467. 

Heyne,  Professor,  95, 105,  106. 

Higginson,  Barbara.    See  Perkins,  Mrs.  S.  G. 

Higginson,  Stephen,  12,  13. 

Hijl,  Lord  Arthur,  442. 

Hillard,  G.  S.,  326  note,  391  note. 

Hillhouse,  Mr.,14. 

Hobhouse,  (Sir)  John  Cam,  166. 

Hogg,  James,  278. 

Hogg,  Mr.,  416. 

Holland,  Dr  (Sir  Henry),  446. 

Holland  House,  295,  408,  418. 

Holland,  Lady,  264  and  note,  265,  408,  409. 

Holland,  Third  Lord,  263,  264,  265, 267,294, 
408,  418,  422  ;  Spanish  library,  457. 


518 


INDEX. 


Hopkinson,  Francis,  15. 

Hopkinson,  Judge,  15. 

Hopkinson,  Mrs.,  16. 

House  of  Commons,  G.  T.  called  before  Com 
mittee  of,  415  ;  debate  in,  416. 

Houston,  General  S.,  372,  373,  374. 

Huber,  Francois,  156, 157. 

Hudson  River,  visits,  386. 

Humboldt,  Baron  Alexander  von,  128-130, 
134  and  note,  135,  138, 145, 146,  254,  255, 
257,  258  note,  263, 498-501. 

Humboldt,  Madame  Wilhelm  von,  177, 178. 

Hume,  Colonel,  447. 

Hunt,  Jonathan,  7,  381. 

Hunt,  Leigh,  292,  294. 

INFANTADO  DUKE  DEL,  206. 

Irving,  Washington,  291,  293, 479,  492. 

"Italians,  The,"  by  Mr.  Bucke,  rejected  by 

a  London  audience,  291. 
Italinski,  179. 
Italy,  visits,  160-184. 

JACKSON,  GENERAL  ANDREW,  480. 

Jackson,  Judge,  40,  371. 

Jakobs,  Professor,  111,  112. 

Jamieson,  Robert,  275. 

Jarvis,  Charles,  20. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  President  of  the  United 
States,  16,  53,  110,  212,  302  note,  303, 
345,  346,  377  ;  visits,  34  38,  348,  349  ;  his 
philosophy,  37;  letters  from,  300-302; 
opinion  of  Bonaparte,  301  ;  plans  for  Uni 
versity,  301 ;  eulogy  on,  378. 

Jeffrey,  Francis,  30,  42,  43  -47,  277,  280. 

Jersey,  Countess  of,  138,  269,  296,  297,  410. 

Johnson,  Samuel,  53,  55. 

Johnstone,  Judge,  381. 

Jones,  Commodore,  373. 

Jordan,  Baron  von,  461,  478. 

Jourdain,  Camille,  255. 

KAHLDEN,  BARONESS,  489. 

Kane,  Mr.,  376. 

Kistner,  Professor,  76,  77. 

Kean,  Edmund,  67, 127. 

Keating,  Dr.  Oliver,  10. 

Kemble,  Stephen,  291,  292. 

Kenney,  Mr.,  406. 

Kent,  Duchess  of,  435,  437. 

Kent,  James,  Chancellor,  338-340,  880. 

Kenyon,  John,  411  and  note,  418. 

Kenyon,  Mrs.  John,  456. 

Kestner,  Charlotte  Buff,  78. 

King,  Rufus,  350,  351. 

Kingsley,  Professor,  14. 

Kirkland,    President    of  Harvard    College, 

letters  to,  321-323,  332,  355,  360,  368. 
Klopstock,  F.  G.,125. 


Knapp,  Professor,  112, 113. 
Krause  of  Weisstropp,  476. 

LABOUCHERE,  HENRY  (Lord  Taunton),  408, 

411. 

La  Carolina,  223. 
Lacerda,  246,  247,  249. 
Lacretelle,  Charles,  133-135, 139. 
Lafayette,  General  Marquis  de,  139, 143, 151, 

152, 155,  257,  263, 344  and  note,  350, 351. 
La  Fontaine,  Auguste,  112. 
Lagrange,  visits,  151,  152. 
La  Granja.     See  St.  Ildefonso. 
Lamartine,  A.  de,  470  note. 
Lamb,  Charles,  294. 
Lansdowne,  Marchioness  of,  413.  415. 
Lansdowne,  Marquess  of,  263,  264,  430. 
La  Place,  Marquis  de,  255. 
Lardner,  Dr.  Dionysius,  425  and  note. 
Lauderdale,  Lord,  264. 
Lausanne,  visits,  152,  155. 
Laval,  Montmorency,  Due  Adrien  de,  128, 

137,  188,  189,  193,  194  note,  204  note, 

209,  210,  212-214,  218.  258,  295,  309, 

311 ;  letters  from,  303,  305 ;  death  of,  307 

note. 
Lebanon,    Conn.,     Elisha     Ticknor    born 

there,  1. 

Lebanon,  N.  II. ,4,  5. 
Le  Chevalier,  J.  B.,  131. 
Le  Clerc,  General,  123. 
Le  Fleming,  Lady,  434. 
Legare,  Hugh  Swinton,  278  note,  450,  488, 

489. 

Leghorn,  visits,  183. 
Leibnitz,  MSS.  in  Hanover,  78. 
Leipzig,  visits,  107. 
Lenox,  Robert,  15. 
Leslie,  C.  R.,339  and  note. 
Lesseps,  Baron  J.  B   B.,  248. 
Lewis,  M.  G.,  67, 155. 
Leyser,  General  von,  465,  476,  486,  491. 
Lichtenstein,  Professor,  501. 
Lieven,  Prince,  381. 
Lindenau,  Baron  von,  457,  458,  460,  464, 

476,  489,  491. 
Lisbon,  visits,  243,  250. 
Lister,  Thomas,  407  note,  418. 
Lister,   Mrs.    Thomas  (Lady  Theresa),  407 

and  note,  418. 
Litton,  Mr.,  421. 

Liverpool,  visits,  49,  297,  298,  402-404. 
Livingston,  Edward,  123,  350,  351,  380,  381, 

382. 

Livingston,  Judge,  39. 
Livingston,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Maturin,  386. 
Livingston,  Mrs.  Edward,  350,  351,  381,382. 
Llangollen,  visits,  51,  52. 
Lloyd,  Professor,  405. 
Lockhart,  Mrs.  J.  G.,  407. 


INDEX. 


Lohrmann,  W  G.,  459,  482. 

London,  visits,  51,  54-68,  251,  263-267, 

289-298,  4UO-418,  445-449. 
London,  Tower  of,  446,  447. 
Long,  George,  Professor,  348. 
Longfellow,  Henry  W.,  399. 
Longfellow,  Stephen,  14. 
Lore tto,  visits,  167. 
Louvois,  Marchioness  de,  253. 
Lovell,Mrs.,286. 
Lowe,  Rev.  Mr.,  440,  441,  445. 
Lowell,  John,  339,  356,  360. 
L  iwenstein-Werthehn,  Princess,  487,  489. 
Lund,  177. 
Liittichau,  Madame  Ida  de,  476,  481,  482, 

483,  485,  491. 

Liittichau,  M.  de,  476  and  note,  491. 
Luxmoore,  the  Misses,  432  note. 
Lyman,  Mrs.  Theodore,  10. 
Lynch,  John,  389  note. 
Lyndhurst,  Lord  Chancellor,  443. 

MACBETH,  Henderson's  reading  of,  55,56. 

Mackenzie,  Henry,  279. 

Mackintosh,  Lady,  290. 

Mackintosh,  Sir  James,  50,  263,  264,  265, 
279,289,290,291,430. 

McLane,  Louis,  409. 

McLane,  Miss,  277, 278. 

McNeill,  Mr.,  417. 

McNeill,  Mrs.,  417. 

Madison.  J. ,  President  of  the  United  States, 
29,  30,  34,  53. 110,  346,  347,  409. 

Madison,  Mrs.,  29,  30,  346,  347. 

Madraso,  Jos6  de,  186  and  note. 

Madrid,  visits,  185, 186-220 ;  described,  190- 
214 

Malaga,  233,  234. 

Malaga,  Bishop,  234,235. 

Malibran,  Madame,  407,  413. 

Maltby,  Mr.,58,  413. 

Malthus,T.  R.,290. 

Manning,  Mr.,  61. 

Marchetti,  Count  and  Countess,  166. 

Mareuil,  Baron  de,  350. 

Marialva,  Marques  de,  180,  246,  263. 

Marina,  Fr.  M.,197. 

Marron.P.  H.,  130. 

Mars,  Mile.,  126. 

Marshall,  Chief  Justice  of  the  United  States, 
33,38. 

Martens,  Professor,  77. 

Martinetti,  Count  and  Countess,  166, 167. 

Mason,  James  M.,  death  of,  456. 

Mason,  Jeremiah,  123  and  note,  395,  396. 

Mason,  William  Powell,  12,  316  note. 

Massachusetts  Congregational  Charitable  So 
ciety,  G.  T.  officer  of,  379  note. 

Massachusetts  Farm  School  for  Boys,  G.  T. 
Treasurer  of,  379  note. 


Massachusetts  General  Hospital,  G.  T.  Trus 
tee  of,  379  note,  384. 

Massachusetts  Hospital  Life  Insurance  Com 
pany,  G.  T.  Director  and  Vice-President 
of,  379  note. 

Massachusetts  Mutual  Fire  Insurance  Com 
pany,  2. 

Mazois,  F.,  179. 

Medico,  Count  del,  446. 

Medina-Celi,  195. 

Melbourne,  "Viscount,  408,  409. 

Menou,  Count  de,  381,  382. 

Meredith,  Mrs.  William,  15. 

Meredith,  William,  15. 

Meredith,  William,  Jr.,  15. 

Meyer,  115. 

Mezzofanti,  Abbate,  166. 

Michaelis,  J.  D.,  76,  77, 127. 

Milan,  visits,  161. 

Millbank,  Sir  R  and  Lady,  67,  68. 

Miltitz,  Baron,  501 

Milton,  study  of,  394. 

Milton,  Viscount,  death  of,  456. 

Minto,  Countess  of,  408,  412. 

Minto,  Earl  of,  408. 

Mitford,  Miss,  418,  419  and  note. 

Mitscherlich,  Professor,  92. 

Miiller,  124. 

Monk,  Bishop  of  Gloucester,  271. 

Monroe,  J.,  President  of  the  United  States, 
349. 

Mont  Blanc,  154, 156. 

Montgomery,  James,  440,  441. 

Montgomery,  Mrs.,  386. 

Monticello,  30  ;  visits,  34-38. 

Montyo.     See  Teba. 

Montmorency,  Due  Mathieu  de,  304  and 
note. 

Montmorency-Laval.     See  Laval. 

Moore's  Charity  School,  Elisha  Ticknor 
head  of,  1;  connected  with  Dartmouth 
College,  2. 

Moore,  Thomas,  420,  422,  425. 

Moratin,  L.  F.,  252. 

Moreau,  General,  488. 

Morehead,Rev   Dr.,  280,  414. 

Morgan,  Lady,  425 

Morley,  First  Earl  and  Countess  of,  407. 

Mornington,  Countess  of,  295,  296. 

Morris,  Gouverneur,  256. 

Morrow,  Governor,  372. 

Mos,  Marquesa  de,  207. 

Miihlenberg,  Dr  ,  111. 

Mulgrave,  Earl  of,  420,  421,  422,  423,  424, 
435,  437,  438. 

Muller,  Johann,  115 

Miinchhausen,  Baron,  501. 

Munster,  Count,  77,  78. 

Murchison,  Sir  Roderick,  419,  421. 

Murray,  J.  A.,  277,  408. 


520 


INDEX. 


Murray,  John,  58,  60,  62,  68, 294. 
Musgrave,  Mr.,  246,  247,  248. 

NAHANT,  339,  386. 
Naples,  visits,  174  - 176. 
Nasse,  Dr.,  454. 
Naumann,  Professor,  454. 
Navarrete,  M.  F.  de,  197. 
Neander,  J.  W.  A.,  493. 
Necker  de  Saussure,  Mad.,  155  and  note. 
Nelson,  Lord,  anecdote  of,  63. 
Nemours,  Due  de,  493. 
New  Bedford,  lands  in,  298. 
Newcastle,  England,  272. 
New  Haven,  visits,  14. 
New  Orleans,  battle  of,  29,  37. 
Newton,  Stewart,  412,  421,  422. 
New  York,  visits,  15,  27,  404. 
Niagara,  visits,  386. 
Nibby,  Carlo,  171. 
Nichols,  Kev.  J.,  336. 
Niebuhr,  E.G.,  127, 177, 178. 
Niemeyer,  Chancellor,  110, 113. 
Niemeyer,  Professor,  111,  112. 
Noailles,  Alexis  de,  254. 
Noel,  R.  R.,506. 

Norton,  Mrs.  Andrews,  334  note,  398  note. 
Norton,    Professor  Andrews,  17,  319,  334, 
355,356. 

O'CoNNELL,  DANIEL,  411,  416,  480. 

Oehlenschlager,  Adam,  126. 

Ogilvie,  James,  8. 

Oken,  Professor,  115. 

Oliver,  Robert,  41. 

O'Neil,Miss,  53. 

Ord,  Mr.,  415. 

Orleans,  Due  d',  493. 

Ossuna,  Duchess  of,  205,  207,  208,  223. 

Otis,  H.  G.,  12-14,  20,  21,  40,  339,  359, 

360. 

Owen,  Robert,  of  Lanark,  278. 
Oxford,  visits,  289,  404 

PAEZ  DE  IA  CADENA,  489. 

Painting,  Spanish  School  of,  216,  221,  239. 

Palafox  y  Melzi,  Don  J.,  206 

Palfrey,  John  Gorham,331. 

Palissot,  Baron,  131. 

Palmella,  Count,  248,  263,  264   and  note, 

267. 

Palmerston,  Viscount,  468. 
Paris,  visits,  126-151;    police  affairs  with, 

141  - 146  ;  visits,  253- 263  ;  salons,  253. 
Parish,  Daniel,  15,  16,  27. 
Parker,  Chief  Justice  of  Massachusetts,  9, 

10  note,  11,340. 
Parker,  Mr.,  146, 148. 
Parker,  Mr.,  407. 
Park  Street,  house  in,  387-389. 


Parr,  Dr.,  50,  52,  53,  288,289. 

Parry,  Captain,  422. 

Parsons,  Chief  Justice,  396. 

Parsons,  William,  331,  332. 

Pastoret,  Count,  253,  255,  256. 

Pastoret,  Countess,  255,  256. 

Patterson,  Mr.,  193  note 

Peabody,  Rev.  W.  0.  B.,  428  and  note. 

Peel,  Sir  Robert,  416,  417,  480. 

Pellico,  Silvio,  450. 

Pepperell,  337,385. 

Perkins,  Colonel  T.  H  ,  328,  370. 

Perkins,  James,  370. 

Perkins,  Mrs   S.  G.,  13,  49,  68,  260,  328, 

331. 

Perkins,  S.  G.,  12, 13, 14,  49,  68. 
Perkins,  S.  H.,  68  and  note,  121. 
Peter,  America  Pinkney,  38. 
Peter,  Britannia  Wellington,  38. 
Peter,  Columbia  Washington,  38. 
Peter,  Mrs.     See  Custis. 
Peter,  Thomas,  38. 
Petrarch,  letter  on,  341-344. 
Philadelphia,  visits,  15,  352. 
Phillips,  Professor  J.,  422,  437  and  note. 
Phillips,  Thomas  J.,  44a 
Phillips,  Willard,  391. 
Piacenza,  visits,  162. 
Pichon,  Baron,  132,  261. 
Pickering,  John,  85,  391. 
Pickering,  Octavius,  391. 
Pictet,Deodati,  153. 
Pictet,  Professor,  153, 155, 159. 
Pillans,  James,  280. 
Pinkney,  William,  39, 40,  41  and  note. 
Pittsfield,  Mass.,   Elisha    Ticknor  head   of 

school  in,  2. 
Pius  VII.,  173, 174. 
Pizarro,  Chev.  Don  L.,  207,  208,  212. 
Playfair.  Professor,  276,  279. 
Plymouth,  visits,  327  -  331. 
Poinsett,  Joel  R.,  350  and  note. 
Pole,  Mrs.,  467,  471. 
Polk,  Mr.,  381. 
Ponsonby,  Frederic,  443. 
Porson,  Richard,  108. 
Portal,  Dr.,  133, 138. 
Porter,  Dr.,  356. 
Portland,  visits,  337,  385. 
Portsmouth,  N.  II.,  visits,  123  note. 
Portugal,  visits,  242-249  ;  people  of,  242. 
Posse,  Count,  183. 

Posse',  Countess.    See  Bonaparte,  Christine. 
Pozzo  di  Borgo,  Count,  131. 
Prague,  visits,  509  -  511. 
Prescott,  Judge  W.,  12,  13,  316,  337,  339, 

340,  345,  355  and  note,  356,  359-361, 

371,  383,  391. 

Prescott,  Mrs.  W.,  317  and  note,  345. 
Prescott,  W.  H.,316  and  note, 317 and  note, 


INDEX. 


391;  letters  to,  341,  346,  349;   goes  to 

Washington  with  O.  T.,  380,  381 ;  letters 

to,  386,  479. 
Preston,  W.  C.,  of  South  Carolina,  278  note, 

298. 

Prevost,  Professor,  155. 
Prichard,  Dr.,  422. 

Primary  Schools  of  Boston,  2  and  note. 
Prossedi,  Princess,  182,  194  note. 
Provencal  studies,  252. 

Prussia,  Frederic  William  III.,  King  of,  502. 
Putland,  Mr.  and  Mrs.,  425. 

QUEBEC,  visits,  386. 

Quetelet,  M.,  450. 

Quincy,  Hon.  Josiah,  339,  345, 368. 

Quincy,  Mrs.  J.,  345. 

RACZYNSKI,  Count,  495,  501. 

Ralston,  Mr.,  278  note. 

Rancliffe,  Baroness,  458,  459. 

Randall,  Miss,  312  and  note. 

Randohr,  175. 

Randolph,  Colonel,  35. 

Randolph,  John,   of  Roanoke,  15,  16,  27, 

381. 

Randolph,  Mrs.,  35,  348. 
Randolph,  T.  J.  and  Ellen,  35,  37,  348. 
Rauch,  Christian,  495. 
Recamier,  Mad.,  137,  304. 
Recke,  Frau  yon  d"er,  474. 
Rees,  Dr.,  55. 
Regina,  Duke  de,  446. 
Reichenbach,  H.  T.  L.,  475,  482. 
Reid,  Mrs., 415  and  note. 
Retzsch,  Moritz,  466,  474,  476,  484,  490. 
Reynolds,  Dr.  Edward,  154. 
Richelieu,  Due  de,  143,  145,  253,  262. 
Richmond,  Va.,  visits,  12,  33. 
Riemer,  Professor,  115,  116. 
Rigaud,  Professor,  422. 
Rilliet,  Mad.,  152. 
Rivas,  Duchess  de,  207. 
Rivas,  Duke  de,  225,  227. 
Robinson,  Henry  Crabbe,  411. 
Robinson,  Professor,  422. 
Rocca,  M.  de,  138. 
Rochefoucauld,  Due  de  la,  256. 
Rockingham,  Marquess  of,  440,  441. 
Rogers,  Samuel, 406,  410  and  note,  412  note, 

414,  430. 
Roget,  Dr.,  416. 
Roman  Catholic  Church,  dedication  of,  18 

note. 

Rome,  visits,  169-174 ;  society  in,  176-183. 
Roscoe,  William,  50-52,  297,  298. 
Rose,  Mr. ,  English  Minister  in  Berlin,  109, 

110,  U9. 

Ross,  Sir  John,  419,  422. 
Roteh,  William,  299. 


Rotterdam,  visits,  68. 

Rousseau,  J.  J.,  156, 158. 

"  Rough  Notes,"  etc.,  by  Sir  F.  B.  Head,  380. 

Rudiger,  Professor,  113. 

Russell,  Lord  John,  166,  264,  269,  270,  290, 

291,  407. 
Russell,  Lord  William,  267,  269,  499,  501. 

SAALFELD,  PROFESSOR,  102. 

Saavedra,  Don  Angel  de  (Duke  de  Rivas), 
225,  228  and  note. 

Sales,  Francis,  teacher  of  French  and  Span 
ish,  '< ,  368. 

St.  Andre,  M.  de,  381. 

St.  Bernard,  Monks  of,  159. 

St.  Bernard,  Pass  of,  158. 

St.  Domingo,  revolution  in,  13. 

Ste.  Aulaire,  Count  de,  253. 

Ste.  Aulaire,  Countess  de,  256. 

St.  lago,  Marques  de,  207;  his  sister,  Pau- 
lita,  207. 

St.  lldefonso,  214,  216  -  218. 

St.  Leon,  133,  134. 

St.  Simond,  Marquis  of,  206. 

St.  Val,  Mile.,  126. 

Salisbury,  First  Marquess  of,  267,  268. 

Salisbury,  Marchioness  of,  268. 

Salviati,  450,  451. 

Sands,  Dr.,  425. 

Sandwich,  Cape  Cod,  visits  with  Mr.  Web 
ster,  386. 

Santa  Cruz,  Marques  de,  195,  207, 221,  223. 

Santa  Cruz,  Marquesa  de,  208. 

San  Teodoro,  Duca  di,  174. 

Saragossa.     See  Zaragoza,  206. 

Sartorius  von  Waltershausen,  121. 

Saussure,  Mad.  de.     See  Necker. 

Savage,  James,  2,  9,  85,  252,  278,  316  note, 
319,  391. 

Savigny,  F.  K.  Ton,  499. 

Saxony,  Anthon,  King  of,  461-467,  481. 

Saxony,  Prince  Frederic,  Duke  of  and  Co- 
Regent  (also  King  of),  462  note,  463,  468, 
485,  486. 

Saxony,  Prince  John,  Duke  of  (also  King 
of),  462  note,  463,  464,  466,  467,  468, 
469,  470,  471,  472,  475, 477,  482,  489. 

Saxony,  Prince  Maximilian,  Duke  of,  461 
note,  463,  471. 

Saxony,  Princess  Amelia,  Duchess  of,  463, 
465,  469, 477. 

Saxony,  Princess  Augusta,  Duchess  of,  461 
note,  463,  484,  486. 

Saxony,  Princess  John,  Duchess  of  (also 
Queen  of),  484  and  note. 

Saxony,  Princess  Louise,  Duchess  of,  463. 

Saxony,  Princess  Marie,  Duchess  and  Co- 
Regentess  of  (also  Queen  of),  463, 467,  484. 

Say,  Louis,  133,  134. 

Schadow,  Rudolph,  177. 


522 


INDEX. 


Schafer,  Professor,  108. 

Schlegel,  A.  W.  von,  127,  128,  129,  131,  134, 

138, 153,  430,  463,  454,  483.  "^ 
Schlegel,  Friedrich  von,  122, 123, 127. 
Schultze,  Dr.,  70,  73  note,  80,  81  and  note, 

82, 121. 

Schurtz,  Hofrath,  112. 
Schwahe,  Dr.,  58. 
Scilla,  Prince,  212,  219. 
Scott,  Anne,  283. 
Scott,  Sir  Walter,  24, 275,  276, 290 - 284, 430  j 

portrait  of,  388,  389,  407. 
Scott,  Sophia,  281,  283,  284. 
Scott,  Walter,  Jr.,  284. 
Sedgwick,  Professor,  271,  419,  420  note,  421. 
Segovia,  Bishop  of,  218. 
Segovia,  visits,  218. 
Senior,  Nassau  William,  407,  412  and  note, 

461. 

Senonnes,  Viscount  de,  255,  262,  263. 
Servia,  life  in,  478. 

Seville,  237-241 ;  Alcazar,  238,  240;  Cathe 
dral,  238,  239  ;  people  of,  239,  240. 
Seymour,  Mr. ,  447. 
Shakespeare,  study  of,  394 ;  Tieck's  reading 

of,  473,  477,  482  ;   Schlegel's  translation 

of,  468,  483. 
Sharon,  Mass.,E.  Billings  (Mrs.  E.  Ticknor) 

born  and  keeps  school  in,  3. 
Sharp,  Richard,  "  Conversation,"  55,  56. 
Shaw,  William   S.,  founder  of  the  Boston 

Athenaeum,  8,  12. 
Shiel,  415. 

Siddons,  Mrs.,  55,  56,  66. 
Sierra  Morena,  223. 
Silliman,  Professor  B.,  14. 
Simond,  M.,  153,  179. 
Simplon,  crosses,  160. 
Sismondi,  Mrs.,  290. 
Sismondi,  Simonde  de,  151,  290,  291,  295, 

297,314. 

Skene,  James,  283. 
Slavery  in  the  United  States,  479. 
Smidt,  Senator,  122, 123. 
Smith,  Benjamin,  175. 
Smith,  Elizabeth,  433. 
Smith,  Professor  Nathan,  14. 
Smith,  Sir  James,  57. 
Smith,  Rev.  Sydney,  265,  413,  414,  417,  418, 

446. 

Smyth,  Ed  ward,  438. 
Smyth,  Professor  W.,  271, 272, 415  and  note, 

438,439. 

Sneyd,  Miss  Mary,  426,  428. 
Solmar,  Miss,  495. 
Somerville,  Dr.,  448. 
Somerville,  Mrs.,  411,  412,  448,  479. 
Sommariva,  Marchese,  175. 
Sonntag,  M.,460. 
Southey,  Edith  and  Isabella,  285. 


Southey,  Mrs  R.,  286  and  note,  434. 

Southey,  Robert,  50, 135, 136, 285 - 287, 434. 

feouza,  Mad.  de,  248. 

Souza,  M.  de,  252,  267. 

Spain,  government  of,  191 J  Inquisition, 
193;  visit  in,  185-241. 

Spanish  bull-fights,  202  -  204  ;  law  courts, 
233  ;  people,  198,  242  ;  libraries,  197,  215, 
216,  252,  457  ;  literature,  passage  on,  in 
inaugural  address,  320 ;  lectures  on,  325 
and  note  ;  books,  G.  T.'s  collection  of,  325 
note. 

Sparmann,  Herr,  504  note. 

Spencer,  Second  Earl,  269,  295. 

Spencer,  Third  Earl  ("  Honest  Althorp  "), 
442-445. 

Sprengel,  Professor,  111  -113. 

Stackelberg,  Count,  460. 

Stael,  Baron  Auguste  de,  128, 138,  139,  151, 
155, 312  ;  letter  from,  313 ;  writings,  314 
and  note. 

Stasl,  Mad.  de,  work  on  Germany,  11,  98  ; 
opinion  of  Lady  Davy,  57  ;  work  on  Eng 
land,  60,  61,  119,  126  - 130, 132, 133,  136, 
138 ;  death  of,  151, 189, 213,  430 ;  anecdote 
of,  497,  498. 

Stanley,  Hon.  Edward  (Earl  of  Derby),  408 
note. 

Stanley,  Hon.  Mr., 424. 

Stapfer,  P.  A.,  130. 

Steinla,  Moritz,  490. 

Stephens,  Mr.,  248. 

Sternberg,  Baron  Ungern,  460,  483. 

Stewart,  General,  381. 

Stolberg,  Countess,  125. 

Stolberg,  Leopold,  125. 

Story,  Judge  Joseph,  40,  316  note,  339,  340, 
361 ;  letter  to,  392. 

Stroganoff,  Count,  462,  464,  465,  468,  491. 

Stroganoff,  Countess,  462,  486,  487. 

Stuart,  Lady  Dudley,  446  and  note.  See 
Bonaparte,  Christine. 

Stuart,  Lord  Dudley,  446  and  note. 

"  Subaltern,"  by  Gleig,  380. 

Sullivan,  Richard,  12. 

Sullivan,  William,  G.  T.  studies  law  with,  9, 
11, 12,  20,  40,  381. 

Switzerland,  visits,  152-160. 

TAGUS  RIVER,  243. 

Talleyrand,  Prince,  13, 123,  254,  258-263. 

Talma,  126,  127. 

Tarentum,  Archbishop  of,  174. 

Tatistcheff,  M.  de,  210,  212. 

Tatistcheff,  Mad.  de,  211. 

Taylor,  Abb£,  173. 

Taylor,  Henry,  418. 

Taylor,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  John,  425  and  note, 

432  note. 
Tazewell,  Littleton  Waller,  350,  381. 


INDEX. 


523 


Tchitchagof,  Admiral ,  179 

Teba,  Count  de,  233,  235. 

Teba,  Countess  de,  233,  234  and  note,  309. 

Testchen,  visits,  504  •-  509. 

Tnacher,  Rev.  S   C.,  11 

Thayer,  Sylvauus,  Colonel  U.  S.  A.,  7, 8  and 

note,  316  note,  372-375,  386. 
Theatre,  French,  149,  150. 
Theatre,  Spanish,  201. 
Tuierry,  A  ,  314 
Thiersch,  Professor,  114, 115. 
Thompson,  Mr.  and  Lady  Mary,  440. 
Thomson,  Mr.,  275,  277,  280. 
Thorndike,  Augustus,  132,  386. 
Thorudike,  Colonel,  371. 
Thorwaldsen,  Albert,  177, 178. 
Thun-Hohenstein,    Count   von,  504   note, 

505  -  507,  508. 
Thuu-Hohenstein,  Countess  von,  505,  506, 

as. 

Thun-Hohenstein,  Count  Franz  von,  505. 

Thun-Hohenstein ,  Count  Friedrich  von ,  505 . 

Thun-llohenstein,  Count  Leo  von,  505,  506, 
509,  510. 

Thun-Hohenstein,  Countesses  Anna  and  Jo 
sephine,  505. 

Tickuor,  Anna  Eliot,  daughter  of  G.  T. ,  382, 
384  ;  letter  to,  397,  410. 

Tieknor,  Elisha,  father  of  George,  1 ;  grad 
uate  of  Dartmouth  College,  1  ;  head  of 
Moore's  school,  1 ;  keeps  a  school  in  Pitts- 
field,  Mass.,  2;  head  of  Franklin  School, 
Boston,  2  ;  author  of  "  English  Exercises  " 
2  ;  grocer,  2  ;  connection  with  Fire  Insur 
ance  Company, Savings  Bank, and  Boston 
Primary  Schools,  2  and  note  ;  retires  from 
business  in  1812,  2  ;  dies  1821,  2  ;  his  ap 
pearance,  3 ;  qualities,  3  and  note ;  im 
porter  of  Merino  sheep,  3  note  ;  marriage, 
4;  G.  T.'s  account  of,  6,  7;  feeling  at 
the  death  of  Washington,  21  ;  confidence 
between  him  and  his  son ,  22 ;  letters  to, 
27,  28,  29,  31,  73  and  note,  74,  79,  81,  84, 
95,  99,  102,  116,  131,  141,  155,  172,  173, 
185,  186,  189,  250,  251,  252,  273-275, 
289  ;  his  death,  334. 

Tieknor,  Elizabeth  Billings,  mother  of 
George,  1:  born  in  Sharon,  Mass.,  3; 
teacher,  3 ;  marries  B.  Curtis,  3 ;  left  a 
widow,  opens  a  girl's  school  in  Boston, 
marries  Elisha  Tieknor,  4 ;  letter  to,  103  ; 
illness,  250;  death,  273-275. 

Tieknor,  Eliza  Sullivan,  daughter  of  George, 
397. 

Tieknor,  George  Haven ,  son  of  George,  birth 
and  death  of,  397,  398. 

Tioknor,  Mrs.  George,  335 ;  letter  to,  372- 
376,  381. 

Tieknor,  Susan  Perkins,  daughter  of  George, 
birth  and  death  of,  397. 


Tieknor,   William,  grandfather  of  George, 

4,5,6. 

Tieck,  Friedrich,  495,  504. 
Tieck,  Ludwig,  457,  460,  462,  468,  469,  472, 

473,   475,  477,  481,  482,  483,  485,  491, 

503. 

Tiedge,  C.  F.,  474,  475,  482. 
Tierney,  George,  263. 
Tintoretto,  163 
Titian's  Assumption,  163. 
Tobin,  Sir  John,  425. 
Tocca,  Chevalier,  175. 
Tocqueville,  Alexis  de,  421  and  note,  458. 
Tolken,  Professor,  497. 
Totten,  General,  375. 
Touche,  Guymond  de  la,  126. 
Trenton  Falls,  visits,  386. 
Trist,  Mr.,  348. 
Trist,  Mrs.,  348. 

Trowbridge,  Sir  Thomas,  180,  277. 
Tudor,  William,  Life  of  James  Otis,  338  and 

note. 
Tuscany,  Leopold  Grand  Duke  of,  489. 

UBALDO,  MARCHESE,  175. 

VAN  BUREN,  MARTIN,  372,  409. 

Van  Rensselaer,  General,  381. 

Varuhagen  Von  Ense   495. 

Vathek.     See  Beckford. 

Vaughan,  Benjamin,  55,  352  note,  413. 

Vaughan,  John,  15,  55,  352. 

Vaughan,  Mr.,  209,  372  and  note,  381,  382. 

Vaughan,  William,  55,  58,  263,  352  note, 

413. 

Venice,  visits,  162-166. 
Verplanck,  Mr.,  381. 
Victoria,  Princess,  435,  437. 
Vignolles,  Rev.  Mr.,  424. 
Villafranca,  Marques  de,  197. 
Villemain,  A.  F.,131, 133, 139. 
Villers,  pamphlet   in  defence  of  Gottingen 

University,  11. 
Villiers,  Duke  of  Buckingham,  record  of  his 

death,  438. 

Villiers,  Hon.  Edward,  437  and  note. 
Villiers,  Hon.  Mrs.  Edward,  437  and  note. 
Villiers,  Mrs.  ,418. 
Virginia,  visits,  26,  31-38. 
Vogel  von  Vogelstein,  482,  490. 
Volkel,  121. 
Von  der  Hagen,  496. 
Von  Raumer,  Friedrich,  485. 
Vo?s,  J.  H. ,  105, 106, 124, 125, 126. 
Voss,  Madame,  125, 126. 
Voss,  Professor,  113. 
Voyages  to  and  from  England,  49,  298,  402. 

WAAGEN,  G.  F.,497. 
Wadsworth,  Mr.  James,  386. 


524 


INDEX. 


Wagner,  Dr.,  154. 

Waldo,  Mr.,  14. 

Wallenstein,  Baron,  346  and  note,  350. 

Walsh,  Miss  Anna,  396  and  note. 

Walsh,  Robert,  16,  392  note,  396  note. 

Warburton,  415. 

Warden,  D.  B.,  142. 

Ware,  Dr.,   Professor  in  Harvard  College, 

355,356. 

Warren,  Dr.  J.  C  ,  Son.,  10, 12. 
Warren,  Dr.  J.C.,2d.,  10. 
Washington,  General,  death  of,  21 ;   modes 

of  life,  38  ;   Talleyrand's  feeling  towards, 

261  and  note. 
Washington,  Judge,  38. 
Washington,  visits,  26,  38,  346,  349,  380- 

QQf> 
OO4. 

Waterloo,  battle  of,  60,  62,  64,  65. 

Waterloo,  visits,  452,  453. 

Waterton,  Charles,  439. 

Watertown,  385. 

Watzdorff,  General  von,  458,  491. 

Watzdorff,  Mile,  de,  467. 

Webster,  Daniel,  5,  123  note,  316  and  note, 
317,  328,  339,  340,  345,  346,  348,  350,  361, 
381,  382, 386, 387, 391, 396,  4U9 ;  Plymouth 
Oration,  329,  330;  letter  to,  370;  eulogy 
on  Ex-Presidents,  377,  378  j  works  re 
viewed  by  G.  T.,  392,  393. 

Webster,  Ezekiel,  7. 

Webster,  Mrs.  D.,  328,  331,  345;  death  of, 
386. 

Welcker,  Professor,  121,  454. 

Weld,  Isaac,  420,  424,  425. 

AVeimar,  visits,  113. 

Wellesley,  Lady  Georgina,  189,  211,  306. 

Wellesley ,  Sir  Henry  (Lord  Cowley),  188, 189, 
209,  295. 

Wellington,  Duke  of,  62,  64, 65,  296. 

Wells,  Samuel,  143. 

Wells,  William,  8. 

Wentworth  House,  visits,  440-445. 

Werther,  Goethe's,  G.  T.  translates,  12. 

West,  Benjamin,  63. 

West,  Mr.,  14. 

West  Point,  G.  T  Visitor  to  the  Academy, 
372 ;  Examination,  372  -  376 ;  visits,  386. 

'Whately,  Archbishop,  412  and  note,  413- 
451. 

Wheaton,  Henry,  494, 496,  499, 501. 


Wheelock,  Dr.,  President  of  Dartmouth  Col 
lege,  5,  6. 

Wheelock,  Mrs.,  5. 

Whewell,  William,  420,  421,  422. 

Whishart,  Mr.,  415. 

White,  Colonel,  373. 

White,  Miss  Lydia,  176. 

Whitney,  inventor  of  the  cotton-gin,  14. 

Wickham,  Jr.,  298. 

Wickham,  William,  33. 

Wieck,  Clara  (Schumann),  474. 

Wiegel,  179. 

Wilberforce,  William,  297. 

Wilde,  Mr.,  14. 

Wilkes,  John,  55. 

Wilkes,  Miss  (Mrs.  Jeffrey),  42. 

Wilkie,  Sir  David,  421,  422,  425,  448,  449. 

William  IV.,  King  of  England,  409. 

Williams,  Friend,  337  note,  385. 

Williams,  Miss  Helen  Maria,  130,  132, 135, 
138. 

Williams,  Samuel,  297  and  note. 

Willis,  Mr.,  of  Caius  College,  436. 

Wilmot,  Mr.,411. 

Wilson,  John,  278  and  note. 

Winckelmann,  J.  J. ,  178. 

Winder,  General,  29. 

Wirt,  William,  33,  351. 

Woburn  Abbey,  269,  270. 

Wolf,  F.  A.,  105-107,  112, 114, 124. 

Woodbury,  L  ,  381. 

Woodward,  Mrs.,  4,  7,  273,  276. 

Woodward,  Professor,  6. 

Woodward,  William  H.,  4,  7,  250. 

Wordsworth,  Miss,  287,  432. 

Wordsworth,  Mrs. ,  287,  432. 

Wordsworth,  William,  287,  288,411,  432- 
434. 

Wortley,  Hon.  Stuart,  408  note. 

Wyse,  183  note. 

YORK,  England,  272;  Musical  Festival  in, 

435-437. 
Yorke,  Colonel  Richard,  442. 

ZACHARIA,  JUDGE,  103. 
Zaragoza,  Maid  of,  206. 
Zeschau,  Count,  460. 
Zeschau,  Countess,  486,  491. 
Ziegenhorn,  Baron,  177. 


END   OP   VOL.    I. 


Cambridge  :  Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  Welch,  Bigelow,  &  Co. 


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